


Best Laid Plans

by TheMadKatter13



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Alpha!Moran, Alpha!Sherlock, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, BAMF!John, Biting, Bonding, Breeding, Cuddling, Dubious Consent, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, John Watson's Blog, Knotting, M/M, Marking, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Minor Character Death, Mounting, Mpreg, Nesting, Not Season/Series 03 Compliant, Omega!John, Omega!Moriarty, Omegaverse, Pheromones, Possessive Behavior, Possessive!Sherlock, Post-Reichenbach, Rape/Non-con Elements, Reichenbach Angst, Reichenbach Feels, Reichenfeels, Scenting, The Great Game, Time Skips, Torture, different POVs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-01
Updated: 2014-04-02
Packaged: 2018-01-07 00:54:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 9
Words: 57,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1113564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMadKatter13/pseuds/TheMadKatter13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the detective's suicide, anyone with eyes could see that there was no John Watson without Sherlock Holmes. Only a rare few even realized there was a flipside to that coin: that there was no Sherlock Holmes without John Watson. Unfortunately, Jim Moriarty is one of those rare few, and while kidnapping his blogger had drawn out out the genius so well the first time, new intel on the 'alpha' doctor has the omega criminal arranging a little bit of 'playtime' between his alpha and his bait while they wait for the not-quite-dead to arrive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

_The Personal Blog of Dr. John H. Watson_  
 _16 June 2016_  
 _ 5 Years_

_Memories are finicky things. You can remember what you did but not why. You can remember a scent but not the sight, the feeling but not the action. Sometimes bits of memories fade after time. Sometimes the memory never fades._

_I remember standing in a queue with my mother when I was four. I can’t tell you what I wore or what she wore or what shop we were in. What I can remember is the look on the omega’s face who stood just in front of us when he went into heat right there in the shop. I can remember the way it felt when the female alpha behind us leaped over me and knocked my head into the counter. It’s how I got my first scar, just behind my hairline. I remember deciding right then that I never wanted to be in the position that omega was in._

_I remember being 16 knowing I was about to present, assuring my parents that I wasn’t so they would go on holiday. Harry had just left for uni not long before. Before the symptoms that anyone else would recognize began to show, I went to the pharmacy to to refill my mum’s omega suppressant subscription and to purchase alpha-scented body wash. I remember signing in to an anonymous omega hotel, going into heat for the first time in secret. It was agony, feeling so empty for days and days, and I remember never wanting to feel that way again. That it would have to take a very special alpha indeed to change my mind._

_I remember washing with the alpha wash for the first time, trying to get used to it before my parents got home. I remember my mother and father’s pride and perhaps minor disappointment that I was an alpha like Harry rather than an omega, and also regret they had missed it when they were away. I remember Harry punching me in the arm. “Lucky dog,” she called me._

_I remember going through Bart’s, relieved that there was an easier way to get suppressants than trying to refill my mother’s prescription. I always took the suppressants anonymously from Bart’s stores, paying the same way._

_I remember enlisting, terrified,_ petrified _, that they would discover my ruse. That they would somehow know that I was an omega. It was far from illegal for omegas to join but I knew I wouldn’t be treated the same as the alphas were treated. I remember the relief when they never did. The suppressants were better in the army too, even more of a relief with all those alphas around. I had accustomed myself to civilian alphas but military ones were another level. But I was never once tempted to go off my meds. I remember how hard I practiced to be better than the rest, to not only present myself as Alpha by smell, but also by attitude. No matter what anyone else tried to say about how I elevated through the ranks, I know it was nothing but hard work and perseverance._

_I remember being shot. The physical pain of the bullet ripping through my flesh and muscle, nicking my bone. The infection that followed after that was almost more fatal than the bullet itself was, and the long, intense treatments to keep me alive. The hallucinations from the fever. The fear that the suppressants would wear off before I was better and I would be found out. I wasn’t, but I was discharged anyway. No one wanted to keep a soldier with a limp nor a surgeon with a shaky hand._

_I remember the desolation that followed. Sitting alone and friendless in that tiny bedsit. The worry I wouldn’t be able to stay in the city I had grown up in and had grown to love. Where would I go after that? There were thoughts of suicide, my service gun in my hand every morning when I woke up, wondering if today was the day. There was nothing left to me. Both of my careers were over. The only friends I had left were either dead or still in the army. Even then, I had few. I couldn’t risk getting too close to someone lest they find out my secret. I didn’t even have any family I could rely on since my parents had died in a car crash when I was at Bart’s and Harry was in an out of jail cells and one-night stands and had no place of her own since Clara had broken the bond._

_But most importantly of all, I remember meeting the whirlwind storm that is Sherlock Holmes. The way he breezed into my life and swept me away. I had known him for less than 48 hours when I shot and killed a man for him, to protect him. I remember every case that followed, the way he cured my psychosomatic limp and, in a way, my shaking hand. He cured me. He became everything in my life. He became the first alpha in my life to make me want to go off my meds. To finally bond, mate, have a child with. I was only 37 but the older an omega gets, the lower the success rate of the birth, and the need, the_ want _, to successfully procreate called to me._

_I remember the pain of knowing he was “married to his work”. That when we had the case where he was surrounded by a room full of omegas in heat, young, pretty omegas, he didn’t even flinch, he was in no way tempted by any of them. A man of iron will, or perhaps complete disinterest. It left me little hope that he would be interested in me the way I was in him. Even worse, every date that he sabotaged, every beta he stole me away from, kept that little sliver of hope going that perhaps he did want to settle down, he only needed to be shown how._

_And then_ it _happened. I can still remember the way his voice shook over the phone line, the way he reached out to me from that rooftop. I could almost hear the tears in his voice and, having seen and heard him in all manner of acting, this was the first time that sounded truly real. I remembered the fear as he spoke, the feeling of impending doom, the oncoming apocalypse. He was my entire world... and then he jumped._

_My heart stopped then. The world shifted and turned and I think I was knocked over but I had to get to him. The image of him sprawled on the concrete, the way the dark blood just further seemed to highlight the paleness of his skin, will forever be seared on my memory and has featured in every single one of my nightmares since. I think my fingers shook when I tried to take his pulse and my own stopped when one failed to beat beneath my grip. As they dragged me away, all colour in the world had faded. My heart had been ripped from my chest and it hurt more than the bullet wound or the infection ever had. The only alpha I had ever chosen, ever wanted, had left me, and he would never come back. My gun became part of my morning routine again._


	2. Temporary

The suppressants always meant that John hardly had to deal with any of the peskier sides of his omega nature. None of that cowering-in-the-face-of-stronger-opponents bullshit, no logical thought processes being overridden by needless protective instincts when every second mattered and there wasn’t time for emotions, no pressing desires to submit to whatever alpha was demanding subservience, and none of the painful and absolute _need_  to be filled. Yes, they were still present, but they were so faded that it wasn’t hard for his strong will to train them to be ignorable, something he’d managed to master before he’d even finished his training at Bart’s. Just like his baser omega instincts, his heats were present but faded, the quarterly body function always arriving with raised temperature, over-sensitized skin, swinging temperament, excessive horniness, and increased cravings for physical affection. Had he been off his suppressants, all the effects would have multiplied by ten and would have successfully crippled him and his daily life, slowly worsening the longer he remained unbred. Oh, and the cramps. The wonderful cramps. The intense... almost ‘clenching’ pain in his lower belly. Best way to start a week, in his opinion. It was rare for a week to end worse than it started, but living with Sherlock was hazardous and life-changing on every level.

However, he would have never guessed, especially after realizing he would never see Afghanistan again, that he would be waking up with a semtex waistcoat. But perhaps what was worse than that was the look of hurt, the look of betrayal, on Sherlock’s face when John stepped out of the small stall. Talk about a knife to the heart. The look of relief across the detective’s face when Moriarty finally revealed himself had been a minor balm that somehow simultaneously managed to increase the ache in his chest. In the face of the incredibly and increasingly high probability that they might die tonight, all the words he wished to tell the detective that had gone unsaid between them was dull roar in the back of his mind.

The small, dark-haired man that had sauntered out of a back room to greet them, well, to greet _Sherlock_ , absolutely reeked of omega-in-heat. He was positively _flaunting_  it, pawing at Sherlock’s jacket, coating it with his scent, and for a few terrifying minutes, all John could think about was how compatible the two geniuses were. How likely it was that the night would end with Sherlock doing what alphas do to omegas in heat, that he would end up mountingmarkingmatingbreeding the consulting criminal and the two would bound off into the night. Together. Leaving John irrevocably alone. Again. Even worse, he knew it wouldn’t be entirely biology at the helm, it would be Sherlock. He had seen the consulting detective walk past omegas in heat like they were just another beta, no care for biology. But Moriarty wasn’t an enticement to his transport, he was an enticement to his mind. Sherlock’s excitement for Moriarty’s games exceeded even the manic glee he got for cases rated eight or above. John couldn’t hope to compete mentally, much less physically. Maybe ten years back, when he looked younger and wasn’t scarred and crippled and damaged he could have fought a war on the latter front, but definitely not now. And at no point in his life could he have fought the former.

Despite his fears of abandonment, or perhaps because of, when Moriarty had reached out to adjust Sherlock’s collar, the omega side of John, long buried under 21 years of constant suppressants but simmering just under the surface in the force of the phantom heat and the threat of death and of a competitor to his alpha’s affections, reared its head. Every molecule of his existence screamed don’ttouch _don’t_ touch _don’ttouch_ DON’TTOUCH mine _mine_ MINE and he had vaulted forward, wrapping his arms around the other man’s neck, shouting at hisalpha _his_ alpha _hisalpha_ HISALPHA to gogetoutbesafelive.

But as it turned out, Moriarty had a sniper in the wings who was less than pleased with John’s accosting of the other omega because, hardly a few seconds later, a bullet whizzed past his neck, grazing his skin and ripping it open with a hot flair. But it wasn’t that that made him let go of the consulting criminal, instead it was the angry screech Moriarty had let out that made him stumble back in surprise. A few short minutes later, his omega instincts reared again at the confident yet panicked way Sherlock stripped him of the semtex jacket and he was frozen with the way he just wanted to curl up against his alpha flatmate with the combatting knowledge that he couldn’t because Sherlock would reject such an emotional action.

In the cab on the way home, both of them were tense, muscles taut and vibrating with fading adrenaline, and something about the sniper’s reaction and Moriarty’s utter lack of care about how close the bullet had come to his own neck, of the sniper’s threat, tickled something in John’s mind and he diligently chased it down until it finally fell into light.

“I think the sniper was an alpha.” Sherlock hummed noncommittally in response, eyes glued to his phone and thumbs flying at his standard obscene pace. Undeterred by the apparent, typical inattentiveness, John continued. “I think the sniper was Moriarty’s alpha.” Now the other man looked sideways at him, eyeing him through narrowed lids.

“Go on.”

“The sniper disappeared when Moriarty snapped his fingers, so it was obviously a set of instructions he had been given before the meeting. But when I grabbed Moriarty and the sniper shot at me, I know he’s a good actor but that scream was not...  scripted, so to speak. That sniper was not supposed to shoot at me. I’m fairly sure that Moriarty would have told the sniper beforehand that just the threat of either of us being shot if the other misbehaved would have been enough of a deterrent, but they shot me anyway. It was personal. I’m an alpha and Moriarty was an omega in heat. Any alpha’s instinct would override conscious thought, especially regarding mates or intended mates. So...  the sniper was Moriarty’s alpha, or they want to be.” For a split second, John could feel the entirety of Sherlock Holmes’ attention on him and it both terrified him and thrilled him in ways he didn’t dare examine. An intense cramp rolled through low in his belly and the suddenness of it overran his normal ability to prevent the pain from showing and he winced. Suddenly, Sherlock’s attention turned to worry.

“John?” He waved him off.

“Stomach cramp. Nothing to worry about.” And with that, Sherlock’s attention, bright like a spotlight, turned back to his mobile and they dissolved once more into silence and it continued that way as the cab pulled up in front of their flat, through John paying their fare, and the short trek up the stairs into 221B. Though his motions were easy and calm, simply moving had spiked his temperature once more and as soon as the front door was shut behind him, he shed his jacket, cringing when the collar scraped the torn and bleeding skin of his neck, and then almost as an afterthought, his jumper followed, leaving a wet trail of blood along the side of his face and leaving him clad in just the thin button-down and the vest underneath. As Sherlock had took up pacing in front of the mantle, John moved to the kitchen to take up the calming ritual of tea making.

Standing at the stove as he waited for the water to heat up, he closed his eyes and breathed in, taking in the comforting scent of 221B: the chemicals, the dust, the tea, and above and below and through it all, the scent of Sherlock. John’s own scent was scarce, light even in the places he frequented because of the suppressants. He took another deep breath, dragging the comforting scent of his alpha into his chest, the tenseness in his muscles dissipating with each expansion of his lungs. He could feel his heartbeat in the wound on his neck he could feel his blood in a sluggish, damp trickle down his neck, the collar having long been soaked through. He really needed to attend to that but something in him was waiting. Waiting for...  he didn’t know. John shook his head and scrubbed his face, turning to get the milk from the fridge when he ran right into his flatmate, who had, apparently, been standing directly behind him for God knew how long.

He waited for a minute for the man to move and then scowled when he didn’t so much as shift. “Excuse me.” He had already had the ‘personal space’ discussion with the alpha before and Sherlock had been doing fairly well but maybe he needed another reminder. The lecture built behind his teeth as he looked up but he could almost feel the words dying on his tongue as he finally took in his friend’s expression.

Black curls were in complete disarray as if they had just been recently tugged and quite violently at that. The ever-changing green-blue-silver eyes were currently a dark, stormy grey, pupils dilated. His lips were parted, breath coming out in little pants that fanned across John’s forehead. The overall effect gave the consulting detective a wild look of a strange mix of panic, confusion, frustration, and something else he couldn’t place. He had never seen such a look on the alpha’s face before and all sorts of warning bells went off in his head.

“Sherlock? All right?” The man was silent for a few minutes, intense gaze locking John’s own eyes in place. He was just about to start looking for physical injury that he very well could have missed and he knew would have been ignored by the genius when his question was suddenly answered.

“No, John.” The omega frowned.

“‘No’? What’s wrong?” Without warning, the alpha was gone, striding back to his place in front of the fire and resuming his pacing immediately. Now more than concerned for his friend, John finished their teas and, after placing Sherlock’s on the table, settled into his chair with his own cup to watch the frantic pacing, growing more and more concerned at the unexpected and unusual show of loss of control. Suddenly, Sherlock froze mid-step and promptly threw himself on the couch. Frowning, John nudged the other’s tea towards him, jumping when there was a knock on the door.

“Yoohoo! Boys!” Mrs Hudson didn’t bother waiting for an answer before siddling in. He shot a smile at the elderly beta but the look on her face morphed from genial greeting to immediate concern. “Dr Watson! Your neck!” Reflexively, he reached a hand up, palming the hurt and cringing as pain flared. He pulled his hand away, frowning at the dampness of his palm as Mrs Hudson’s own fingers moved to where his had been, brushing at the wound and he hissed at the new flare of pain--somehow, it was always hurt more when someone else touched a wound than when one did it themselves.

A low rumbling filled the air and a sharp scent filled his nostrils, one that spoke of danger, of warning, of possessiveness. Mrs Hudson had frozen at his side, staring at Sherlock like she’d never seen him before. Following her eyes, he turned and was shocked to find Sherlock now frozen at the mantle--John hadn't even heard him get off the couch--posture stiff, eyes wide, one corner of his mouth curled in a snarl, exposing an elongated canine, bright eyes fixed on his landlady. As John stared, confused, it finally clicked that it was _Sherlock_  making the sound and projecting the scent. It took a minute to register for he had never heard or smelled the equivalents for his flatmate before, but they were the same warnings mates and potential mates used for warning off suitors and challengers. John realized that, for the first time since he had known the man, he might actually be seeing the alpha side of Sherlock. The question was though: why?

When Mrs Hudson, still unmoving at his side, failed to move away, the sound emanating from Sherlock’s chest intensified, as did the sharp scent in the room. John couldn’t tell if it was the sound, the scent, blood loss, or a strange combination of the three, but he was starting to feel delightfully light-headed, a pleasant tingling in his veins. And he was rock hard behind the zipper of his trousers. To his further shock, the omega in him, the one that had never responded even under great stress nor any strength of alpha pheromones while in the military, was pulsating under his skin, demanding, for the third time that night: _Comfort! Reassure! Present! Submit!_

_**NO!** _

He stood suddenly to try and disconnect from his omega instincts but the movement was so sudden that it made his head swim. He gripped the chair tightly as he waited for the room to stop spinning but it was a strangely wondrous feeling and he couldn’t help but wonder if he was grinning like an idiot. As soon as everything settled, he put his teacup on the side table then turned to their landlady and tried to give her a reassuring smile as he ushered her towards the door.

“We’ll be all right, Mrs Hudson. Perhaps you’d better stay downstairs tonight?” There was another spike in alpha pheromones and he turned in time to see Sherlock take a step towards them, both corners of his mouth now curled and growling even more intensely. Ignoring every omega instinct his body was shouting at him to submit and reassure his alpha, John hardened his pose and his eyes, pinning the detective to the fireplace with his stare.

“No,” he said firmly. The man paused, his growling faded as a confused look wrinkled the skin on his brow, one foot still ahead of the other. “I will show Mrs Hudson to the door and I will be right back.” It was a long moment before the detective straightened, the puzzled frown morphing into one of annoyance.

“Of course,” Sherlock huffed, resuming his pacing but keeping his eyes on his flatmate. John narrowed his eyes minutely, trying to determine if Sherlock’s alpha instincts would flare again before turning back to the confused beta at his side and ushering her out the door. He followed her out and shut the door quickly behind him, leaning in to whisper quietly in her ear.

“No matter what you hear, do not come up tonight, all right?” She turned wide eyes to him before she nodded, and then her lips quirked.

“You won’t be needing that second bedroom after all then, Dr Watson?” Now it was his turn to stare at her in confusion before his cheeks flamed in realization.

“No, we’re not-- I’m not--” But he didn’t have time to fully deliver a rebuttal before the door behind him was ripped open (quite violently) and Sherlock was standing there, stormier than a raincloud. He _snapped_  his teeth at his landlady in a sharp click, one arm snaking around John’s waist and yanking him just as violently inside. The last thing John saw of Mrs Hudson was her raised eyebrow and knowing look as she chuckled to herself, tottering back down the stairs. The door slammed closed, blocking her from view and the lock was thrown before John was deposited back on his feet, but it seemed even then Sherlock wasn’t done manhandling him. John was dragged back over to his chair and shoved to sit. His anger with being treated like a rag doll was raising exponentially and he had to bite his tongue to stop himself from lashing out, trying to keep in mind that while Sherlock’s usual possessive tendencies were bad, they were never this bad which meant it was his alpha nature at fault rather than Sherlock himself.

Suddenly he remembered the aftermath of firefights from when he had been on, well, any of his tours. Despite the amount of suppressants everyone--alphas, betas, and omegas alike--had been on, nothing triggered such base instincts like stress and fear did. Alphas, both underlings and superiors, grew intensely protective of the omegas among their fellow soldiers afterwards, regardless of bonded status. Even John, deep under the cover of his suppressants and his alpha wash and persona, was subjected to the instincts of the alphas around him, those under his command and those in command of him constantly checking up on him afterwards, unwilling to leave his side as he performed necessary medical duties on those who needed it. And the patients of his that were alphas tried everything in the book to keep him at their bedside. Even though he had only ever presented as alpha to everyone and anyone he ever knew, it seemed that something about near deaths triggered, at the very least, a subconscious recognition of his true second gender, inciting an alpha’s need to protect the omegas in their pack. If Sherlock had been subject to such biological urges previously, then he had kept them well-hidden.  Then again, while Sherlock’s life was almost always in danger, John’s hadn’t been to this degree the entirety of their partnership. But tonight, they had both had close scrapes with death, John more so than Sherlock, and John had been shot in the neck, and perhaps it was a little closer of a call than the detective’s control restraints could deal with.

Sherlock had resumed his pacing, though it was now definitely more agitated than it had been previously and it was accompanied by an increasingly frustrated expression. John resumed sipping his now-tepid tea as he watched his friend with growing concern and puzzlement. All his alpha fellow soldiers in the past had simply acted on their urges without thought, had-- _Oh_. That was the key wasn’t it. The soldiers hadn’t thought about it. But Sherlock...  Sherlock’s beautiful brain could do nothing else _but_  think. And if that were indeed the case, he was currently not able to reconcile his biological needs to comfort the distressed and injured omega in his pack with the knowledge he had available to him that there was no omega to comfort. Because John was presenting himself as an alpha but was exuding traces of omega-in-distress pheromones undetectable on every level except the subconscious one, the entirety of Sherlock’s current panicked and frustrated state was entirely John’s fault and therefore, up to John to fix, up to John to calm the agitated alpha and return him to his typical state.

But what did he know of calming alphas? In the military, when an alpha was approaching feral state, if the alpha was bonded then military would do everything they could to get the alpha’s mate to them. If that was not possible or if the alpha was unbonded, then the alpha’s team would create a nest in the barracks to calm and to comfort (for the entirety of his military career, John had staunchly and successfully avoiding being pulled into any such nests). Worst case scenario, an omega close to the alpha would be sent in, the scent of concern strong on them in order to lower the alpha’s defenses, and would sedate them with a hidden syringe. Considering what he knew of Sherlock, unless the man had been lying to him about it this entire time, he didn’t have a mate so that was out. If at all possible, he would prefer to avoid sedating the man as he had never reacted well to sedatives. So...  a nest? But who would Sherlock willingly nest with? He couldn’t see him accepting Mycroft, he had had already snapped at Mrs Hudson, a beta, so she was out, and the only other person he was close with was Lestrade but if he had snapped at a beta, he was hardly likely to accept the care of another alpha. That left... . John himself. But would the other man accept a nest at all, much less with him? If Sherlock’s possessive actions thus far this evening could be relied on, then perhaps. If nothing else, it was worth a try.

John sat there for a moment as he finished his tea, trying to weigh all the pros and cons for his own self-proposed experiment. Really, as far as he could see, the only risks were 1) that Sherlock could reject it (and him), and 2) should Sherlock accept, unbonded omegas and alphas who entered a nest together had, as far as John had heard, a 100% success rate of emerging from the nest bonded to one another. He eyed his flatmate carefully. If there was any alpha in the world he trusted to not try to mate him under a rush of biological urges, alpha wash and omega suppressants or not, it was Sherlock Holmes. Nodding to himself in affirmation of his decision, John drained his tea and stood. The effect on the detective was instantaneous, the alpha freezing mid-step to stare at him, trying to deduce his upcoming actions. John ignored him in favour of scouting their sitting room for a spot, his eyes falling on the corner behind Sherlock’s chair where currently only the fan stood. Both walls had bookshelves a bit down but far enough that there would be enough space. Spot mentally secured, he went on the hunt for blankets and pillows.

Still keeping his eyes averted from the alpha’s, he threw a quick “I’ll be right back” over his shoulder as he traversed the short distance to the detective’s bedroom. The bed’s only covering were a sheet, a duvet, and two pillows, but he gathered it all up before returning to the sitting room and dumping the lot in the chosen corner. “Back in a mo’!” he shouted as he ran up the stairs, taking the solitary pillow, sheet, and blanket from his own bed and returning to the sitting room to add it to the pile. He squinted contemplatively at the selection for a few moments before deciding it wasn’t quite enough so he went back on the hunt, first in the downstairs closet and then Sherlock’s wardrobe, coming up with several more blankets that were all sufficiently scent-ingrained with Sherlock’s scent.

He continued to ignore Sherlock as he relocated the fan and began using the abundance of pillows and blankets to make a nest in the corner, making sure there was sufficient cushioning against the hard wood of the floor and that the pillows made a decent wall to surround the two men with. Satisfied with his work, he finally turned to make eye contact with Sherlock, finding that the alpha had stopped his pacing and was already watching his every movement, a confused crease to his brow.

“Come here, Sherlock,” John called softly, beckoning to the nest he had made. Grey eyes moved from him to the nest and back before the man took a step forward. The doctor waited patiently as his friend repeated the process once before stopping entirely, spine straightening out and lips parting, and just like that, John could hear the impending argument. He straightened his own spine, squaring his shoulder and adopting a glare as he repeated his request more firmly. This time Sherlock stalked forward until he was standing directly in front of John, most definitely a breach of personal space, once again glancing down at the nest then back up to his blogger.

For his part, the doctor couldn’t help but notice the way Sherlock’s pupils were constricting and dilating wildly, from the pinpricks of his rational mind trying to rationalise his transport’s actions to the black holes of his subconscious mind trying to pacify his biological instincts. He had never seen anything like it before in his life. But then again, he had never met anyone like Sherlock before either. John dropped his eyes, knowing well from experience how alphas couldn’t stand to be challenged, even more so when they were approaching feral state, and how most alphas viewed direct eye contact as a challenge. It was while the pupils of those beautiful eyes were fully dilated that Sherlock spoke for the first time in what felt like hours.

“Nest?” John smiled and hoped it didn’t come across too sad as he nodded. If Sherlock had full control of his mind right now, he would hate John for what he was being forced to do. The doctor cleared his throat, feeling like a lump was stuck in his throat.

“Go on.” He gestured again, feeling his eyes grow tense. He felt like crying at what his friend was being reduced to. John couldn’t help but think that, more than stupidity, Sherlock hated biological imperatives, his own even more than others. He could only hope that he wouldn’t hate John come the cold, harsh light of the morning. The detective took a step closer, now nearly pressing against him and John looked up in surprise, watching and realizing that Sherlock’s pupils were now completed dilated and were staying that way. The alpha side had won, at least for now.

He jumped when Sherlock’s head bent towards his neck and he craned his own head to follow the movement but as soon as he did, fingers were in his hair, holding his head still. A nose traced along his neck, from ear to collar bone, right over his scent gland, and he couldn’t help the shiver that wracked his spine. _‘Oh fuck, he’s scenting me.’_

“Shhh...  Shhh..." It took a minute to realize that Sherlock was making the sound and at the same time was emitting the same pheromones alphas used to calm distressed mates. _‘Not good. Abort. Abort mission.’_  Cool air hit the skin of his shoulders and he jumped, stumbling backwards as his shirt was pulled from his arms, the buttons apparently having been undone by the alpha’s free hand while he had been scenting John. Sherlock, still hushing him, followed, pulling John’s vest up and over his head before the soldier could even blink, before pulling him close once more, nosing at his hairline. “Nest. No clothes. Shhh..."

“No, wait, Sherlock--” Teeth nipped at his ear at the same time a hand undid the button on his jeans and John jumped again. Nothing like this had ever happened in the military. If he had thought he was out of his depth before, he was sure of it now.

“It’s ok. Shhh...  Mine,” Sherlock was muttering against his temple. All John could do was shake his head and raise his hands, trying to push the alpha away.

“No, Sherlock. I’m an alpha, remember?” he pleaded, trying to step away as determined hands shoved at both his trousers and pants. “You’ll hate me in the morning if you continue so please, please stop.” Sherlock was shaking his own head, irises completely taken over by pupils.

“Never hate. Mine. It’s ok. Shhh..." he was saying, succeeding in stripping an already-shirtless John of not only his trousers and pants but also his socks and his shoes. John was now not only naked in front of his feral alpha flatmate in their sitting room, but also panicking at the fact that he was naked in front of his feral alpha flatmate in their sitting room. The same feral alpha flatmate who seemed to grow more determined to calm him the more he panicked. It was the most fucked up loop John had ever been caught up in.

Hands closed over the ones he had pressed against Sherlock’s chest and tried urging his fingers to the buttons. He tried shaking his head but reassurances kept being whispered against his temple and finally he relented, albeit with trembling fingers. Button by button, Sherlock’s shirt came undone, the alpha being the one to peel it from his arms. Those same insistent hands pressed his fingers towards the button and zip on his flatmate’s trousers and though his head continued to shake, his fingers did as they were wordlessly instructed. In a matter of minutes, they were both equally naked and John was doing everything he could to not look down. While he had been naked around army mates before, and been around naked people both in military and medical aspects, neither the army nor Bart’s could have prepared him for standing naked with the one person he had fallen irrevocably in love with that would never love him back.

The hands around his were tugging him backwards and down and he nearly fell after Sherlock as the detective settled into the nest John had made, pulling the omega in after him. John tried to angle himself to sit at Sherlock’s side but luck had never really been on his side. He was pulled, pushed, prodded, and shifted until he was sitting between Sherlock’s legs and with his back pressed most intimately against Sherlock’s chest, firm arms wrapped around his waist, both of their legs bent at the knees, legs spread and feet flat on the ground. An unfamiliar length pressed against his arse, thick and long and hard and everything he could want.

As an omega masquerading as an alpha, he had previously only gone after female betas. Never had he had any kind of sex with any kind of male, nor any kind of alpha, lest they realize his anus was not that of an alpha male’s. He was in completely uncharted territory on so many levels right now and he had no idea what to do or how to handle the situation. The blankets shifted around him and he started before realizing Sherlock was fixing them, cocooning the two of them. The blankets were wrapped around his front, hovering just above his nose and keeping their heads exposed, likely to keep watch on potential intruders. The air in the nest began to fill with the concentrated scent of Sherlock and he moaned miserably. Arms wrapped around his chest, pulling him in snug until there wasn’t room for a breeze between them.

"Ah, Sherlock," he started, trying to keep his voice steady, "what are you--" He froze when teeth closed gently on the skin at the nape of his neck and his chin immediately dropped to his chest, submitting in a way he’d never done for any other alpha. As a pleased sort of purring vibrated the chest at his back, the teeth at his nape slowly released his skin and he relaxed even further. He couldn’t help it. The scent of Sherlock in the small nest was absolutely overpowering, slowly relaxing each of his muscles.

Sherlock’s face dropped into his neck, his chin resting almost on John’s collar bone, his lips nuzzling at the bullet wound and the unexpected contact made John jump and hiss in pain. The reaction was instantaneous. Sherlock’s grip around him tightened and the pheromones ( _protectedsafe_ ), exploded in the air around them, a comforting rumble vibrating through the chest behind him right into his back. A moment later, a tongue brushed over the wound on his neck and he was so surprised by the move, and it was so unexpectedly erotic, that he couldn’t help the absolutely _filthy_ moan he let out, the single swipe shooting lightning through his nerves and right into his cock. His head dropped back against Sherlock’s opposite shoulder, exposing his wound, and incidentally his scent gland, to the alpha’s attentive tongue. He almost whined in frustration, barely holding it back in time, when instead of continuing at his neck, the tongue traveled up the side of his face and he remembered the blood that had smeared on his skin when he’d pulled off his jumper. As he remained pleasantly distracted by the ministrations of a smooth tongue, the arms around his waist raised and crossed over his sternum, surprising him when they began plucking lightly at his nipples. The omega groaned, hips swiveling in place at the onslaught of sensations.

As the tongue cleaned his face, the hands began to move down his torso, little flames of arousal following them as they petted at his ribs and sides. By the time they reached his hip bones, he was panting, his cock harder now than it had ever been and jutting out from between his thighs. Usually he was the caretaker of others but right now, though it started out as him taking care of Sherlock, their roles were quite firmly reversed and his omega instincts were absolutely ecstatic over the attentions being given by his chosen alpha. The harsh roll of pain through his lower belly though was a stark reminder that Sherlock was not, as much as he wanted it to be true, actually his alpha. That Sherlock was very strictly married to his work and the only reason this was occurring was because his cursed body was letting out pheromones that he couldn’t help and they were tricking Sherlock’s senses in a way neither of them could help. The thought made him sick and his internal arousal dropped sharply but his cock refused to follow suit.

"Sherlock. Please stop,” he choked out, trying to fight his own instincts swooning over such a virile alpha’s affections. “Sherlock, what happened to that gorgeous mind? You're going to hate me in the morning if you keep going." A chill crept through his chest at the thought. "I don't want you to hate me."

"Shhh..." lips shushed against his neck, hands stroking his chest and stomach in firm, comforting circles. "Shhh..." John shook his head lightly, opening his lips for another protest when that tongue very suddenly swept over the wound on his neck again and a moan just as filthy as the first burst from his throat. Fuck. He always forgot how sensitive he could be during his phantom heats (the beta women in his past had always benefitted quite nicely from such times). But the alpha didn't stop there. The blood from his face must have been taken care of because this time Sherlock’s tongue didn’t move from his neck and began to clean the wound itself and John’s erection had to have been leaking now with the force of his arousal. Despite the protests in his mind and from his mouth, his hands were limp at his sides and his head was lolling about uselessly on Sherlock’s shoulder. Without warning, warm fingers wrapped firmly around his cock and gave it a languid stroke.

"Ohhh fuuuck..." he groaned, squeezing his eyes shut as the hand continued its leisurely movements. "Sherlock..." The omega fisted both hands in the blankets at his sides, hips trying to thrust up but lacking a proper angle. Blunt teeth nipped the skin below his wound in reproach, careful but firm. He whined low in his throat, an apology, and angled his face even further away, exposing more of his neck placatingly. John curled his fingers tighter in the thick fabric as the tongue returned to the wound at his neck, each lap of the muscle accompanied with a matching stroke to his cock. The other hand left off his chest and suddenly two fingers were pressing at his lips. Without a thought his lips parted and the fingers slid in. The taste of Sherlock’s skin on his tongue was like tasting the same scent that was intoxicating his nose and he felt absolutely drunk on Sherlock.

John moaned around the digits, swirling his tongue around them as he sucked lightly, all the while Sherlock’s own tongue and other hand continuing with the infuriatingly slow pace along his neck and cock. After only a minute, the fingers slid from his mouth and he whimpered automatically. Teeth nipped at the nape of his neck once as the hand that had been in his mouth curled around his waist and dropped between his thighs and then, quite suddenly and without notice, a finger pressed fully into his arse. Caught entirely by surprise, he yelped and jumped. A second later, the finger pulled out and pressed back in and John moaned at the feeling. Suppressants normally muted the painful need to be filled when an omega was in heat, but with Sherlock inside and around him like that, his desire to be filled first appeared and then grew as the single digit slid in and out in time with the hand on his cock. It was torture. He whined quietly and shifted his hips, suddenly aware of a line of hot flesh pressed between his arse cheeks and resting against his lower back. A second finger pressed in.

Fire was filling his veins, his mind growing fuzzy as a genius' violinist’s hands gently maneuvered him right to the brink, the build slow with the pace on his cock and the fluttering brushes against his prostate. He was babbling something but he couldn't hear himself over the dull roar in his ears, nor could he hear Sherlock even though lips moved against his skin as if in speech. The tongue on his neck, even though it must have been free from blood by now, didn’t stop its strokes across the bullet wound. Cock at his back, already slick with either pre-come or sweat, was pressing against him gently, sliding between his arse cheeks with every thrust of Sherlock’s hips. Unable to help himself, already thrusting into the fingers around his cock and up his arse (three now), he also began back rocking against his alpha’s cock, pre-come building at the tip of his own cock with every motion. The pleased rumble against his spine intensified when he began rocking back, John quickly falling into a rhythm of pressing up into the fist around his cock before rocking back into the others' cock, the fingers in his arse accommodating his motions, keeping the brushes against his prostate infuriatingly light. It was the slowest build to orgasm he had ever experienced in his life and that, along with who it was with, who was _causing_  it, seemed to just make it better and more intense.

"Oh Sherlock. Oh _God_ , Sherlock!" Shit, he was going to come. "Sherlock Sherlock Sherlock," he couldn’t stop himself from chanting, white noise filling his mind and ears as unbearable pressure built up in his bollocks. Even as it built, the slow pace around and in him continued but the cock at his back began to rut furiously against him. "Fuck, I'm going to come. Sherlock! Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuuuu-nnnngh!" Lights exploded behind his eyes as the skyrocketing pressure in his bollocks finally took flight, his come spurting all over Sherlock's still moving fingers as they stroked him through his orgsm.

Barely after he had come, he felt Sherlock's own release spatter against his back and in the way the hips behind his slowed and the firm, unyielding pressure of teeth on the skin around the wound--not breaking the skin, just holding. He could feel the other's ejaculate slowly start to slide down his back when the fingers in him withdrew (not without protest) and that hand began massaging the alpha’s ejaculate into the skin of his back, rubbing the scent in, clearly marking him _Hands Off!_  to all other alphas. He let out a weak moan as the thought caused another strong pulse to go through his cock, a mini-orgasm delivering more semen into Sherlock's waiting hand.

The teeth in his neck slowly released his skin as the cock still pressed between his arse cheeks pulsed again, more semen landing on his back. This time though, the massaging hand seemed to gather the liquid up and moved around to his front, now massaging it into the skin of his lower belly. At the same time, the pressure of Sherlock’s head on his shoulder disappeared, reappearing on his other shoulder, nudging his head to the other side before the point of the alpha’s nose began to brush from shoulder to under the jaw to behind the ear and down again, right over the scent gland on the other side of his neck, over and over. _‘Christ. He's full on scenting me! He's_  marking _me!’_

Even with that thought John couldn't bring himself to move. Every few moments, Sherlock would tremble and more semen would hit his back, the ejaculate quickly gathered and massaged into the skin of his genitals, his thighs, his hips, his sides, his neck over both scent glands, every area reachable being treated to the process. Here and now, in the warm afterglow of orgasm and in the warmth of their nest and in the firm comfort of Sherlock's ministrations and embrace, he had never felt safer and more comfortable in his life. Sherlock was still purring contentedly and, feeling drowsy with pleasure, John soon drifted into sleep.

The next morning, John woke up in much the same position he had fallen asleep in, only a tad more reclined against the hard chest at his back, his head lolling on a firm shoulder, and wrapped in two arms that felt as unyielding as the floor he was sitting on. His now-limp cock was sticky against the skin of his thigh and he wrinkled his nose at the sensation even as he relished in the feeling of warm skin of a solid chest pressed flush against the skin of his back. For a moment, the omega simply relaxed in his alpha’s embrace, breathing in their combined scent and the scent of sex. And then in a rush his brain caught up with his body.

In the light of the morning and in the absence of the phantom heat that must have finally dissipated during the night, the cold reality of the situation set in. Like a video montage played behind his eyelids, he suddenly remembered in vivid detail each and every time Sherlock had disdained alpha-omega bonds, the inescapable biology of heats and ruts, and bondmates in general, as well as how he had explained his experiments to recognize and overcome (ignore) such biological impulses, with such vehement passion to John. But for John, the memory of what had occurred the previous night, even though it was merely a biological reaction with absolutely no relation to Sherlock's actual feelings, instantly became his most favoured and most precious memory. A memory he by no means wanted tainted by anyone or anything, Sherlock included. If his friend woke up, even if Sherlock didn’t remember what had happen, his sharp tongue would deduce, out loud, what had happened in seconds, would rip the memory to shreds. It didn’t matter how true his words would be, John wanted to keep last night safe in his mind forever.

More carefully than he could ever recall having moved in his life, he extricated himself from the alpha's grasp and out of their ( _temporary_ ) nest, grateful that Sherlock seemed to be deep in his usual post-case coma. He just stood there for a minute in the sitting room, feeling entirely unsure of what exactly to do next, wanting nothing more to crawl back into the warm cocoon behind him but knew he would not be welcome by his friend’s conscious mind. Finally, he snagged his clothes from the floor and crept away to his room before adjourning to the shower, grateful for the hot water. Wanting nothing more than to leave Sherlock’s scent on his skin, especially with the possibility that he might never again be welcomed back into the flat, but knowing that no one could know about the night, John scrubbed and scrubbed and _scrubbed_  with unscented soap until his skin was pink and his heart was raw before washing with his usual alpha-scented soap. All the while, his omega side, still close to the surface after the events of the previous night, screamed and wailed and lamented at the loss of his alpha’s scent on his skin.

It couldn’t be helped though. It was bad enough that the nest he had created would be infused with the scent of _them_ and sex and pheromones, that he couldn’t risk cleaning the semen from Sherlock’s fingers without risking waking him, that no matter his clean-up efforts the consulting detective would still be able to deduce what exactly happened and how. All he could do is go to Harry’s for a few days and pray to a God he hadn’t spoken to since he’d been shot that Sherlock would ignore and/or delete what he would deduce and that he would allow John to remain his friend. If he didn’t allow it, it would break John, but Sherlock would be happy, and Sherlock’s happiness had always held a place of importance greater than his own. He would do whatever he had to to give the man what he rightly deserved after a life of cruel comments instead of praise and ridiculing laughter instead of appreciation.

He was silent when he crept out of the flat with a full knapsack, he was silent when he walked into Harry’s flat and cleaned up after the inebriate passed out on the sofa, and he was silent for the next four days as he wandered around her flat and the surrounding neighborhood in a fog, always keeping his phone charged and on-hand, wishing but never daring to hope.

_Pass me the harpoon. - SH_

_Where is it? -JW_

_The kitchen. -SH_

Relief flooded John and he was out the door before Harry could realize he’d even pulled his phone out, racing towards the nearest busy street and empty cab. When he returned home, he dutifully passed over the harpoon without a word. There was never any mention of that night, no indication it had happened at all and by all indications, Sherlock had deleted it. After that night, there was no more appearances of John’s omega nature. There was no more appearances of Sherlock’s feral-alpha nature. And then there was no more Sherlock.


	3. Stuck in the Fourth Stage

Sally Donovan’s fist was not kind as she pounded on the door of 221 Baker Street, locked as it was for once. She shifted impatiently from foot to foot as Lestrade hung back to her side. Though they were both alphas, being her boss he normally took point but today, the hunt was hers.

“Donovan, what are you doing? The man’s barely been dead--” The DI’s voice stopped and he cleared his throat, eyes shining as the scent of grief emanating from him spiked momentarily. “He hasn’t been dead even an hour yet.”

“Sir, Watson lived with Holmes for over a year. At the worst, he is an accomplice and will know what’s been going on this entire time and needs to be arrested before he might try to flee. At the best, he’s been just as much, if not more, of a victim in the freak’s schemes than we were and he needs a great deal of psychiatric help and he _still_ needs to be questioned.” The silver-haired alpha blinked before he frowned.

“Be that as it may, John has still lost his alpha. He’s not going to be in much state to do anything, be it flee or answer questions.”

“‘His alpha’?” Sally echoed disbelievingly before pounding on the door again. “Sir, you must be joking. They’re both alphas. Two alphas can’t mate.” Though knowing the freak, that would hardly stop him if it’s what he wanted. He’d probably would have coerced the doctor into a mating just as he had coerced his way onto their crime scenes.

“Donovan, do you remember what I was like when my mate took the kids?” It felt like all the blood drained from her face at the memory. After three days with no appearance and no word from the DI, Sally had taken into her hands to make sure that he was still alive and all right. As far as she knew, his front door still bore the gouges his claws had made when he had tried to attack the alpha moving onto his territory after the loss of his mate and offspring.

“Of course I remember!” she hissed, now pounding heavily and consistently on the door. “And I am always the first to remind everyone else to be careful when questioning or arresting bondmates after something has happened to the mate. But that was your _bondmate_! They’re not even together! I know the rumours and the jokes but you can smell they haven’t even touched each other. And they’re both Alphas! Alphas can’t mate other Alphas!” she insisted again. Lestrade rubbed his face with his palms. And once again, she had the feeling that while what she was saying might be true for everyone else, Sherlock Holmes and John Watson had never been ‘everyone else’. Suddenly, she had no doubt that if they wanted to bond, nothing as ‘trivial’ ( _“dull”, “boring”_ ) as secondgender was going to stop them.

Without warning, the front door was opened by the beta landlady, Mrs Hudson, if she remembered correctly. Her eyes were red, a handkerchief clutched in her hand, and the scent of grief was emanating from her in soft waves. “Can I help you?”

“Yes, I need to speak to Dr Watson immediately,” Sally informed her and barely waited for a response before sliding past and heading up the stairs. She had barely gotten a quarter way up when she ran into a scent wall of grief and anger so strong she almost tripped backwards down the stairs, only her hand on the banister keeping her from falling. In all the times she had gone after bondmates whose mate had been a victim, never had she experienced this kind of emotion this strongly. Perhaps the inspector was more right than she had thought. Cursing under her breath she brought her arm up to cover her nose with her elbow before she continued to the door marked ‘B’, the knob also, for once, locked.

"Dr Watson, I know you're in there! O-!” THUD “-pen!” THUD “Up!" THUD THUD THUD. Her fist pounded heavily against the wood in her passionate state. There was a sound behind and below her and she turned around to find Lestrade at the bottom of the stairs and the landlady fluttering at his side, both of them staring at her.

“What’s going on?” the beta asked, worry lining her face. The older alpha was quick to placate her.

“Nothing, Mrs Hudson. We just need to ask John a few questions.”

“Oh but surely that can wait a bit? Poor dear’s had a rough day.” Even as she spoke she sniffed and dabbed at her eyes. Lestrade shot Sally a look that she steadfastly ignored as she renewed her knocking.

“DR WATSON! OPEN THIS DO--” Her call was cut off abruptly when the door opened and she was staring down the barrel of a handgun. On the other end of what she had no doubt was a very loaded gun was a man she couldn’t say she’d ever met before. That Watson was a doctor wasn’t something that was easy to forget what with an aura like a blanket fort in front of a fire on a cold winter’s day. What _was_ easy to forget that the man had also been an army captain, a soldier, and it was _that_ man that was standing in front of her, leveling a gun at her forehead and exuding nothing but a slew of barely-restrained negative emotions, grief the most prominent among the lot.

Sally’s fingers twitched toward her own holstered gun and Watson’s thumb flicked out to release the safety and she froze.

“What are you doing on my territory?” His voice was as hard and cold as his eyes were and Sally felt a shiver roll down her spine. John Watson was normally a warm, dare she say, _cuddly_ , alpha who always brought light into the room, even if he did so with a sailor’s mouth. But the Watson here and now was a man who brought cold darkness. It was...unnatural.

Momentarily at a loss for words, she glanced down the stairs to find her boss and the landlady equally shocked and speechless, and unable, and potentially unwilling, to help her. She had always wondered at the inspector’s willingness to accept everything the freak said and now she wondered if he viewed the other alpha as a friend. During the chase for the consulting detective the last few days, while Lestrade had done his job, every action had been doused in reluctance. She couldn’t tell which of the two below were least likely to help her and the thought scared her.

Three things seemed to happen simultaneously: a shot rang out, something fire-hot grazed her cheek, and she smelled her own blood on the air. Acting on pure instinct she bared her teeth and crouched slightly, eyes returning to the threat less than a meter from her.

The alpha standing there hadn’t appeared to have moved, hadn’t blinked, hadn’t flinched hadn’t breathed, finger still poised to pull the trigger. Again.

“I won’t ask again.” Sally felt frozen, torn between repressing her instincts to protect herself and the conscious desire to just bring in the man for questioning, and quite possibly arrest him for assaulting her. But over all that was laid the shock of witnessing such a 180 of the doctor’s usual personality. As she stared him down, there was a tightening of the tan, weathered skin around light blue eyes and his finger tightened around the trigger. Instantly she stepped back and lowered her eyes. She didn’t want to die. Not today.

“Donovan wanted to escort you to the Yard for questioning,” Lestrade finally spoke up from below. John’s eyes, and gun, never strayed from her forehead as she took another step back, and then another, retreating to the top step, her own eyes fixed firmly on the muzzle. Behind her, she could feel her superior alpha creeping up the stairs.

“If anyone comes to our-” John stopped suddenly, a lost look flitting across his eyes as his face drained of colour and his shoulders drooped. A split second later his face became expressionless again, his posture ramrod straight once more and eyes hard and cold. “If anyone comes to my doorstep without invitation again, I will shoot them. If you try to come in without my permission, through either the door or window, I will rig IEDs to the door and each window. Have I made myself clear?”

The short man’s presence was a dark, looming, _thing_ in the doorway of 221B and the scent of grief and anger emanating from him in increasing waves was so strong Sally could almost taste it. She couldn’t stop the whimper that escaped her throat, nor the way her head tilted to expose her neck ( _appease the predator_ ), even as she nodded and continued stepping backwards down the stairs. The inspector met her halfway and dragged her down to even ground. Mrs Hudson was nowhere in sight. When they finally reached the bottom, Doctor Watson finally lowered his gun but did not re-engage the safety. His eyes finally left her to a place over her shoulder, where her boss was standing, and the doctor gave a short nod before backing into his flat, the quiet click of a lock falling down to them.

Sally still felt a bit shell-shocked as Lestrade dragged her outside and she was suddenly quite glad the man had driven and not her.

“Jesus, Donovan,” he exhaled as he started the car. “You’re lucky he didn’t shoot you. And he wouldn’t have even been in the wrong about it.” She could only nod absently. Everyone knew not to bother grief-stricken alphas for at least a week after the death of their mate but the doctor and the detective hadn’t even been mated. That reaction hadn’t even been expected. No. That wasn’t quite right. Lestrade had expected it. Had tried to warn her. She should have listened.

~X~

Molly Hooper almost didn’t go to Sherlock’s funeral. After all, she knew very well that he was alive. What stopped her from not going was that it wasn’t Sherlock she was going for, but those left behind and unaware of what he’d actually done. When she got there, and she saw the look on John’s face, she rather wished she’d decided not to go after all.

The poor alpha hadn’t even been able to speak when it had come time to for him to do so. He had gone up to the front, opened his mouth, and stopped. After a moment, he shook his head and stepped right back down again. Mrs Hudson had taken his place rather quickly. Afterwards, when the closed coffin with the body double was lowered into the ground and the small (depressingly small) contingency of funeral goers were approaching John one at a time to give their condolences, Molly was one of the last, and she couldn’t even bear to look the man in the face. He looked so haggard, exhausted, rings around his eyes and brow furrowed, and she hadn’t been able to say anything, just shook his hand and then, surprising both of them, flung herself forward to wrap him in a hug. There was a pause, and then he had returned it, grasp a little desperate.

“Thank you,” he whispered before dropping his arms. His voice was quiet, much quieter than she’d ever heard him from when he’d arrived at the morgue in-tow of a particular detective. It sounded nothing like him.

As soon as she got home, she gathered Toby in her arms, dropped onto the sofa, and cried for John watson.

~X~

Elizabeth Hudson was rather concerned for her remaining occupant. She had attended Sherlock’s funeral and later his gravestone with the dear doctor, witnessed his grief in person. She herself had grieved over the past month and it was slowly waning, but Dr Watson hadn’t even stepped foot on the stairs between 221B and 221A with the exception of that one excursion with the police just hours after Sherlock’s death. She had tried bringing him tea and asking after his well-being that first week, but neither attempt at socialisation seemed to go very far. The second week, she had gone up the stairs with mail in hand.

“Dr Watson. I have your mail, dear,” she called. She waited for several long moments before hearing a slow, shuffling sound from the other side of the door before it opened. Her eyes widened at the sight she was greeted with, a grim, gaunt alpha wrapped in a bedsheet. It wasn’t even the toga-style her deceased tenant used to walk about in, but more the cocoon-style of someone who was ill. Even more concerning was the fact that, despite the inferior sense of smell her beta secondgender provided her with, she could clearly tell that the sheet John was wrapped in was one of Sherlock’s.

“Thank you, Mrs Hudson,” the man finally replied, voice hoarse from non-use. “You can just stick anything else under the door. Ta.” And with that, he turned away, the door slowly closing after him. As soon as it clicked shut, there was the quiet _schick_ of the bolt sliding home. Mrs Hudson stared at the door for several long moments before she tottered back to 221A to start on an herbal soother for the hip that was beginning to ache.

The two tenants of 221B had always been rather close and after hearing about Sherlock’s suicide, she was afraid the good doctor wouldn’t take well to the news but this... this was even worse than she’d imagined. Perhaps she might have to give Mycroft a call after all.

~X~

Mycroft Holmes didn’t bother to lift his head from his work at the sound of Anthea’s footsteps approaching at a quick pace, the Pace of Important Unexpected Business but not quite the Pace of Urgent Unexpected Business.

“Sir, you have a call from Mrs Hudson.” Ah. So it was John Watson-related. It had been just over three weeks since Sherlock had put Lazarus into action and Mycroft had rather expected the call to come last week.

“Thank you, Anthea,” the British Government nodded his thanks to his assistant, finding himself looking up to watch the alpha sail right back out of his office and unable to keep his eyes from her hips. Hm. He didn’t usually have an issue with his omega biological urges. He’d have to double check the dosage on his suppressants and make sure he wasn’t developing a resistance to them. He pressed the phone to his ear. “Good afternoon, Mrs Hudson. To what do I owe this call?”

 _“Afternoon, dear. I’m rather concerned about Dr Watson. He hasn’t come out of his flat since Sherlock’s...accident. I haven’t heard him leave to get food and he’s not looking very well at all.”_ Mycroft dropped his head to his free hand and massaged the bridge of his nose between his thumb and middle finger. He had known John would not react well, an argument Sherlock had either not understood or not wanted to understand, he couldn’t be sure of which.

“Thank you for informing me, Mrs Hudson. I shall make sure he has provisions until he feels well enough to rejoin us.” And with that, he promptly hung up before the elderly beta could get going in a long-winded one-sided conversation. He’d already known John had yet to emerge but knowing the doctor’s persistence to always keep Sherlock fed up, he’d assumed the landlady had been making sure he was fed. Not an oversight he was likely to make again.

“Anthea.” He barely had to raise his voice for his assistant to hear and come back in the door, eyes firmly fixed to her Blackberry as always. “Please make sure weekly groceries are sent to Dr Watson’s flat.”

“Yes, sir.” Back out the door she went, and if her hips had an extra sway to them that hadn’t been there before, then Mycroft was sure he’d imagined it.

~X~

Greg Lestrade tried to not let his horror show as he eyed (what was left of) John Watson as the DI approached the bar where several empty shot glasses were already lined up in front of the doctor.

"You look like shit."

"Ta, mate."

The thick woolen jumper, once used to hiding a built frame he had only seen on a rare few occasions (the times where wounds on either of them required actual hospital attention, which was more time than any of them wished for), now hung from bony shoulders. The blue eyes once bright with intelligence were now dull and glazed and accentuated with dark circles, tell-tales of sleepless nights. There now seemed to be a permanent frown gracing the pallid skin of his forehead, the corners of his mouth pulled down like he would never smile again. He might've been sitting now but Greg would bet his newest badge that if the man stood up, it would be obvious even to Anderson that he had lost weight.

"All right?"

"Not remotely."

The DI stayed silent as he absorbed the answer and tried to reconcile the gaunt man in front of him with the strong alpha soldier in his memory.

"Haven't seen you since..." Greg started and then trailed off, _‘since the day Sherlock died.’_ He faced forward, rapping sharply on the bar top with his knuckles to get the server’s attention, gratefully downing the delivered shot and just as quickly ordering several more.

He cleared his throat. “I’ve been calling you every week for the last three months and you’ve either ignored it or declined my offer. What changed?” Straight to the matter. Always the best thing to do and something he knew appealed to both the soldier and the doctor in John.

“I can’t...” The man paused and downed another shot. “I can’t smell him any more.” Lestrade froze with his own shot glass halfway to his mouth. “His scent isn’t anywhere in the flat. I’ve looked and I’ve looked but it’s not--it’s not there.” Down the doctor’s hatch went another two fingers of amber liquid. “I checked all the blankets and pillows and all the shirts I could find in his room and in the closets and.... I can’t smell him anymore.”

The detective had no clue what to say, he’d never had to comfort the remaining half of a bond outside his job before, much less someone he knew, so he simply laid a firm hand on the doctor’s shoulder for a few moments before returning his hand to his shot glass. Together, they simply sat there at the bar, not speaking, John not looking anywhere but ahead as they drank, shots of whiskey turning into pints of beer.

It became a routine, every week the two meeting at a local pub. John slowly stopped hitting the harder alcohol and he seemed to gain weight again but his sorrow was as constant as the jumpers he wore and it seemed even time could not diminish it.

~X~

Sarah Sawyer checked John’s blog everyday, waiting for a sign that John might want to come back to work. And it wasn’t just because she needed the extra pair of hands (though she really did), but because she knew John well enough that he needed something to concentrate on besides the loss of his best friend. If ‘best friend’ was even the right word for the two of them. Considering that, John wouldn’t be handling it well at all.

Five months after the accident, a blog post went up saying only “He was my best friend and I'll always believe in him.” She called him an hour later and the next day, he was back at work. He was so much more subdued than she was used to, but seemingly more dedicated than he’d had been when he’d had, in a way, two jobs. There were a few incidents wherein several people had snuck in under the guise of needing medical care to inquire about his previous acquaintance. He had no problem in removing them quite bodily from the premises.

“Would you like to have dinner?” she asked him on a Friday a month after his return to her clinic, lingering in the doorway to his office. His back was to her and he seemed to be placing a file in the case as slow as possible.

“Sarah, I’m really happy you’ve given me this job back but I’m not--” She cut him off before he could go any farther.

“No no no, I literally mean just dinner,” she clarified firmly. “You look like you’re either not eating enough, or you’re not eating well, and frankly, you look at risk for malnourishment.” She let out a breathy little laugh, perhaps a bit forced. “Besides, we already tried that and it didn’t work out. I’m not-- I’m not what you’re looking for and that’s fine. But I would like to be your friend if you’ll let me.” He closed the drawer and turned to face her, brow furrowed and eyes contemplative. At last, he let out a breath and it was like a balloon deflating.

“Yeah. All right. Sure, I’d like that. Thank you.” She gave him a small smile.

“Why don’t you come around after work and have some nice, homemade cooking, yeah?” The corner of his lip quirked up for a flash but considering his consistent blase mood, she counted it as a victory.

“All right, sure.”

“Great. In that case, I’ll pop off, get things started, and I’ll see you in a bit.” With that, she said her goodbyes and dropped by the market on the way home. Everything was nearly done when there was a light knock on her door. They ended up eating without speaking, John avoiding any of her less-than-subtle hints that she was there to listen if he needed to talk. Afterwards, he helped her with the clean up and as soon as the table was clear and the dishes cleaned, he thanked her and then he was gone.

Every Friday from then on, Sarah stopped in the doorway of John’s office and offered dinner. Every time, he accepted, and each time, he would stay a little longer. After three months of this, they hired a new nurse, a nice beta woman called Mary Morstan, who seemed to develop a crush on John rather quickly but also made sure to stay professional. A month after hiring Mary, Sarah stopped by on a Friday, asking even though it was merely a formality by now. To her surprise, John declined.

“Mary asked me out to dinner and it’s been nine months and well...” he petered off, fiddling with a patient folder. Sarah smiled brightly.

“That’s great, John!” She hadn’t been lying when she said she just wanted to be friends, and she was truly happy to see John on his way to moving on. His cheeks darkened and she laughed on her way out the door. Stopping by at the market was simple habit by now, and she joked with the cashier as she was checked out and she settled in at home feeling relaxed and happy for her friend. It gave her time to settle in with that novel she had barely put a dent in and a large glass of wine. So she was quite surprised when a familiar knock dragged her from her pages. Confused, she kept the chain in place and peeked around her door.

“John?”

“Can I come in?”

“Oh yes, I’m sorry.” She fumbled with the chain until she was finally able to slide it free and yank the door fully open. The look on John’s face as he shuffled inside was grim and she quickly herded him to the couch, perching next to him, ready to move back at a moment’s notice. Ever since the Fall, he reminded her of a wounded animal, skittish and prone to defense. “I...thought you were out to dinner with Mary?” He tensed up immediately and she gently laid a hand over his knee. “John? Will you please tell me what happened?”

“I thought I might be ready. It’s been nine months. But I just... She tried to kiss me but I just...” He trailed off, left hand flexing , fingers curling and uncurling, in the fabric on his knee. Tentatively, she reached out, wrapping first one arm around his shoulders, and then when he didn’t shrug her off, the other, tugging him gently to rest his head on her shoulder. He curled into her immediately, and for the first time in a long time, it struck her how un-alpha like John could be when all his defenses were down. Not that she was complaining. It was extraordinarily difficult to comfort someone when they were being excessively macho.

“Do you want to come lay down?” He stiffened and she just raised one hand to run her fingers through his hair, knowing if he would take a minute and think, he would understand her offer. It took him another minute but he relaxed and nodded. She stood and tugged him towards the bedroom, laying down on the bed and waiting for him to pace along the sides a few times before he toed off his shoes and fell onto the sheets next to her, curling into her side. She just wrapped her arms around him again, petting his hair, and he was asleep in minutes.

He was gone when she woke up the next morning but she didn’t mind. On Monday, Mary offered a resignation so her feelings wouldn’t interfere but John wouldn’t hear of it, ever the knight in shining armour even when he was the princess in need of saving, reassuring her that he wasn’t offended and he wasn’t going to be the cause of her being in between jobs. Life went on, the two falling back into pattern again. John kept accepting her offers of dinner on Friday nights, and on occasion, he would show up on her doorstep, full of apologies for bothering and hungry for affection, even if he himself didn’t understand that’s what he was there for. She tolerated it all with a smile and no other motive than to make John happy. But as the first anniversary of Sherlock’s death came and went, and John didn’t get any better, her hope for his wellbeing began to diminish.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Timeline](http://themadkatter13fanfiction.tumblr.com/post/91723768803/best-laid-plans-c3-timeline) now available for the chapter.


	4. Just Like Old Times

**1 YEAR 2 MONTHS LATER**

John groaned as he came awake, his consciousness seeming to flit in and out. His entire body hurt. Every muscle felt sore. His head pounded. The entirety of his skin felt on fire, the upper echelons of ‘high-grade fever’. Cramps were running rampant through his lower belly with an intensity he had never before experienced. It was as if the sickness he had had been combating for the past several days was finally coming to head, all the symptoms he’d been experiencing multiplied by ten. The only other time in his life he had felt anything close to this wretched was 24 years ago, when he had experienced his first and only heat at 16. And perhaps his memory of it had been weak, but how he felt now was at least five times worse than then. But he couldn’t be in heat. He had been dutifully taking the same medication for well over two decades and it hadn’t failed him once. But then, John shifted and a _need_ ripped through him so violently and so thoroughly that he was in tears when the sensation faded away, absolutely sobbing and distantly aware that he was incredibly hard, his erection pulsing in time with the clenches of his arsehole.

He felt completely disoriented, light-headed, nauseous, by what his body was experiencing. And perhaps it was because of that that it took him at least a full two minutes to realize that not only was he bound to some kind of strange chair, but he was bound to it completely starkers. The chair itself was incredibly bizarre, his arms stretched straight above his head, his wrists bound with metal cuffs to the strangely high top of his chair. His legs were also stretched straight but they were stretched out in front of him and spread as far apart as they would go, his ankles bound with the same metal cuffs, and if the faint breeze across his bum was anything to go by, it didn’t have a seat, which left him feeling uncomfortably exposed and vulnerable. In addition to the cuffs on his wrists and ankles, there seemed to be one around his waist, his chest, his neck, and on none of them could he see any method of closure, nor did they budge when he strained, so the only way he was getting out was if his captor let him out. As far as he could see around his own arms, there seemed to be a bar going from both the left and the right side of the chair in a perpendicular line outwards but he couldn’t see to what they were attached to.

The floor beneath him looked like concrete and the walls in front and to either side of him were far away and lined with windows made up of a patchwork of tiny, dirty, broken panes of glass. There were tall, thin, ceiling-high pillars placed sparsely about him, and mixed in with those were lights in cages hanging from long cords. It reminded him a great deal of the warehouse he had first met Mycroft in, but unlike then, there wasn’t anyone in sight. Slowly, he became aware of a smell that was making his stomach roil in retaliation and he almost gagged with the need to vomit.

“Holy fuck what is that smell?” he rasped. “I’m going to be sick.”

“That,” John tensed immediately at the sound of the voice behind him, “is the nearby sewage treatment plant. I was beginning to wonder if you’d _ever_ wake up, Birthday Boy. Sebby is usually so good with the doses. He knows how I don’t like mistakes. But he could still be mad at you for getting so close to me at the pool. He does tend to hold a grudge like that, you know.” It was like he had been doused with ice water without any of the cooling benefits. He knew that voice. He knew that tone, he knew that style of speech, he knew that _voice_. It was the same voice that had whispered things in his ear as he stood at the side of a pool wrapped in semtex. It was the voice that had led to the best night of his life with the most important person of his life. It was the voice responsible for making the most important person of his life think that suicide was the only way to escape living with people not believing in his abilities. It was the voice responsible for the last two years of near-crippling grief and anger. Rage flooded him immediately at the sound of that voice.

“Moriarty,” he acknowledged with a growl and the small omega, dressed as impeccably as he had been at the pool, stepped into view just past the doctor’s feet, amiable smile on his face. “What could you _possibly_ want from _me_?” Fuck, his skin _burned_ and he needed something inside him _now_ \--what was that _smell_ \--no, not something. Someone. Sherlock. He needed Sherlock. But at the thought of the lanky alpha that he would never see again, potent grief swept through his rage so swift that he had no time to repress it. He gasped at the onslaught of emotion, the strength of the it somehow greater than it had been right after the event itself. “What the fuck,” he huffed, panting when the sensation faded back to join his rage in the background. “What did you do to me?”

“‘Do’? Oh darling, you really are too precious. I didn’t really _do_ anything. All I had Sebby do was swap your suppressants for some pills of my own making.” John frowned.

“I’m an alpha, I’m not taking suppressants,” he denied firmly even as he internally panicked. How had they gotten to his pills? What kind of pills could his suppressants have been swapped with? And if he hadn’t been taking his suppressants, then all the symptoms of a heat that he was feeling right now were because that’s exactly what his body was entering. It also explained the strange fluctuation of emotions and their unusual potency. To make it worse, he was nowhere near his territory, the only place he would trust to pass his heat in safety. Moriarty gave him a knowing look.

“Johnny, Johnny, Johnny,” he admonished, tsk-ing softly. “ You’ve done so well with your disguise but...” He stepped out of view, around the back of John’s chair. A finger pressed in him with no warning and he gasped, trying to jerk away from the appendage but his bindings allowed no such movement. Still, his cock bobbed obscenely against his stomach as a vague relief came about from having _something_ pressed inside him. Even as he tried to rebel against the feeling, the finger pulled back out and his internal muscles tightened, trying to pull the digit back inside. Moriarty came back into view and stepped right between his legs, holding a finger covered in a familiar, glistening slick in front of his face. “I think this rather speaks for itself.” He held it up to his nose, eyes closing as he breathed in deeply. “Mmm... You smell good, even to me. Want a taste?” He held the glistening finger close to John’s mouth and the doctor’s head lurched forward against the binding at his throat, intent on biting off that which had violated him, only to snarl when it moved too quickly away and his teeth snapped only on air.

Without warning, electricity surged across and under his skin, turning the world white with the pain. Every single muscle in his body was tensed as the onslaught went on and on, stripes of pain across his wrists, waist, and ankles as he strained against his bonds, his jaw clenched tightly to prevent sound from escaping him. Just as suddenly as it started, it stopped, and his vision went black for a moment before Moriarty swam back into view in front of him. He was panting, trying to make his tongue work but for too long it felt like he had forgotten how to speak. “What...” he finally managed to gasp, the words coming out slurred. “What...the...fuck...”

“Sorry, hun. Slipped my mind. Those bands double as,” Moriarty giggled, “shock collars, so to speak. And I’m afraid Sebby still hasn’t forgiven you for grabbing me at the pool. So best be on your best behavior or his hand might...” Electricity flooded him for a second time and, if possible, felt worse than the first time. When it receded, it took longer for his hearing and sight to return than the first time, his headache had worsened, especially right behind his eyes, and his heart was fluttering dangerously. _‘Arrhythmia,’_ he thought distantly. “Sssslip,” Moriarty ended, popping his lips on the ‘p’. John could feel himself nodding in acknowledgement as he tried to control his breathing, let his heart return to normal. As he panted, the same disgusting smell flooded his nostrils and even began to settle on his tongue and he began to cough, trying to get rid of it.

“That smell is making me nauseous,” he managed to rasp between coughs.

“You can deal with it,” the other man snapped suddenly before his face cleared for a gentle smile that didn’t reach his eyes before his eyes closed and he pressed the finger that had been in John between his own lips and humming contentedly.

“I must say, those pills really do work wonders on you. Even I want to fuck you.” The leer that focused on him from beneath hooded eyes made a shiver of disgust and fear trail down John’s spine. He tried to respond but his tongue still wasn’t quite working properly and it took him several tries.

“What pills?” Speaking shouldn’t be this much of an effort but whatever he’d been drugged with to get him here coupled with the two times he’d already been shocked was turning even the simplest actions into Herculean tasks.

“We needed a convincing bait and when Sebby found out you were really an omega, he wanted to have a little fun with you.” The other omega stepped forward, and John tensed as a finger began tracing invisible patterns on his chest. “He has been such an obedient pet and I like to reward my pets when they’re good. After he swapped your pills for mine, we just had to wait for your body to flush out those naughty suppressants.” The finger moved to circle a nipple, tracing just around the bud before brushing lightly over the tip. He absolutely hated that his body responded with an encouraging groan which was cut off a moment later with a hiss of pain when the same nipple was grabbed and twisted harshly. “The pills I had made special, just for you, but they’re getting quite popular in some circles. They clean out the suppressants at an accelerated rate, within days really, and the heat they bring on is rather more intense than regular heats.” The finger moved towards the other nipple and he tried to flinch away but he had nowhere to go and a moment later, it brushed over the opposite nipple in with the same barely-there brush before twisting it painfully. This time he was prepared and managed to stay silent.

Then what Moriarty said clicked and the panic and fear in him swelled even as he tried keeping it under control. His cock and his arsehole were still throbbing distractingly in equal measure. If he was entering his heat, he would be broadcasting _FUCK ME_ pheromones to any alpha in range, and intense pangs were radiating through him from the same hole with every second that passed where he remained unfulfilled. That same panic, as well as everything else in him, was screaming to get back to his alpha’s territory, to where safety was, and the rush of instinct had him struggling futilely against bonds he already knew he couldn’t escape, all of it only making him realize the true depth of hopelessness that was his current situation. There was no way to save himself from this, and there was no one else to do it either. Mycroft didn’t care about him now that Sherlock was gone, Mrs Hudson wouldn’t be able to do anything, he had just seen Lestrade last night so he wouldn’t even try to call or text for another week, and he had taken the next several days off from work because he had thought he was coming down with something. There was no one to miss him.

“Who the fuck are you baiting?” he asked when he managed to get his emotions (barely) under control. “Mycroft? I haven’t seen him since--” his throat closed and he shook his head, trying to clear the memory. “I haven’t seen or heard from Mycroft in two years. You’re wasting your time.”

“Oh don’t be _dull_ ,” the other omega scoffed, letting his hand drop to grasp John’s cock in an unforgiving grip that brought tears to the bound man’s eyes, even as his body tried telling him it was relieved to finally be touched. “I have other things to bait the Ice Man with. No, you’re the special worm for our virgin angelfish.” John could only stare in angered confusion.

“‘Virgin angelfish’? Who are you--Sherlock? Are you talking about-- You can’t possibly be talking about Sherlock.” Moriarty’s grip tightened painfully and John grunted through gritted teeth as the other man nodded, humming thoughtfully as if he wasn’t currently torturing someone. “He’s _dead_ , you mad man! I watched him jump! How can you not have heard of it?” The anger with which his words were spat felt hollow, filled instead with sadness as the memory was once more dredged to the forefront of his mind.

“Oh honey, Sherlock isn’t _dead_.” The small man in front of him finally released his grip on John’s cock to tilt his head back and laugh as if he’d never heard anything funnier while the doctor just shook his head in denial.

“You’re completely off your rocker. He didn’t have a fucking pulse, you nutter!” His head had started to go all foggy, refusing to clear up and only worsening with the pass of each second. A sort of need he’d never before experienced was flooding his every nerve, telling him he needed to find his alpha and get mounted _now_. With every moment that passed that he wasn’t stuffed full of an alpha’s cock, the hotter his skin grew, the more his head swam, the more he _hurt_. Flashes of pale skin surrounded by dark blood swam in front of his eyes as he panted, feeling ridiculously out of breath for being stuck to a chair. Whatever kind of pill he’d been unknowingly taking was dangerous if he was feeling this out of sorts and this out of control. If he wasn’t being propped up by a chair right now, he would be crumpled on the floor. As it was, holding his head up to keep from being strangled by the band ‘round his neck had never been harder in his life.

“Oh, it was a very convincing death.” John shook his head, half trying to clear it, half in denial. Convincing? What’s there to convince when the proof had been right under his fingertips? “Had me going for a while, too. But I’m afraid he’s rather shown his hand. Hasn’t left much of a trace, he’s getting better, but the overall has been rather telling.”

“I knew you were insane but this is just...it’s just...” John shook his head, mind rebelling at this level of madness. He was suddenly overcome by another white-wash of pain in the form of electricty through his body and behind his eyes, and by the time the shock from the bands had worn off, this time longer than the others, he didn’t think there wasn’t a single muscle in his body that wasn’t trembling.

“Pets are usually so adorable when they try to defend their masters but now you’re just being rude, Johnny.” A fingertip touched the tip of his cock and he flinched again, this time so hard the chair shuddered. “Come now, none of that,” Moriarty said, tone oddly soothing. “Or I’ll have to punish you.” It was said so cheerfully that it made his skin crawl. Slowly, the fingertip pressed against his slit and for a moment the pressure was nothing but pleasure before the fingertip tilted to press a nail to the sensitive skin and he breathed harshly out his nose at the pain that did nothing to wilt his erection. When the fingertip finally pulled back, a drop of pre-come clung to the pale skin. “Want a taste, Sebby?” the other omega asked, holding his hand up to something, or someone, past John’s shoulder and out of his sight.

Alerted to the fact that there was someone behind him, granted Moriarty was telling the truth, John’s head turned from side to side, but his backwards visibility was still just as impaired as when he had tried taking in his surroundings upon waking up. He couldn’t see anything that wasn’t in front of him and it only fed the constantly fluctuating levels of panic inside him. And all he could think about was the omega-in-distress pheromones his body must be sending out in waves upon waves right now. And the disgusting scent from before was getting stronger.

“That smell is getting worse. Why the fuck is it getting worse?” he asked out loud, hoping for an answer but not expecting one, asking mainly to try to distract himself from the vile scent.

“Ah yes, about that. See, those pills you were taking have this _teensy_ side effect where they’re rather good at amplification, both your own senses and the pheromones you put out. And the smell you’re putting out right now, honey? Mmm,” Moriarty pulled his arm back and, to John’s surprise, put the fingertip with the dot of pre-come on it directly onto his tongue. The omega closed his eyes, as if savouring it, and a rush of aggression at the sight made John want to rip the other man’s tongue out through his throat, give him a nice Columbian necktie to go with his fancy suit. “Well, the scent and pheromones you’re putting out right now,” that finger came down and swiped off another bead of pre-come before putting it to a pink tongue a second time, “pet, you could make a bonded omega try to claim you. Perhaps the dosage we gave you might have been a bit strong. But we can’t well have anyone bothering us. So we hid your scent where no one would want to sniff, and what better location for that than a sewage plant? Slight inconvenience that we’d have to smell it too. Come on, Sebby, there’s enough for you to have a taste.” The finger came down for a third swipe before returning to being held over his shoulder.

As Moriarty stood there, seemingly waiting, John became aware of an approaching scent he didn’t recognize, a scent of an alpha. By all accounts, being an unmated omega, just the smell of any nearby alphas should have had him on his knees gagging for whatever cock could get to him the fastest. But breathing in the scent drifting to him on the air only made him nauseous and the closer it got, the sicker he felt. He could hear footfalls now, quiet _thud_ s of boots on the concrete, getting closer and closer, and by the time they stopped right behind him, he was indeed gagging but with the effort of not throwing up. There was a rasp of tongue on skin and a growl of approval that made him shiver with something nowhere near delight.

“The smell is getting worse.” John was coughing now as he tried to keep the smell of sewage and strange alpha, which were starting to mix and become one in the same, from his nose by breathing through his mouth but he now could _taste_ the scents almost as strongly as he could smell them. “I’m going to be sick,” he rasped.

“Aw, Sebby, your location choice is making him sick. Well,” Moriarty sighed dramatically, “I suppose we best do something about that. Can’t have you leaving the party before the guest of honour has arrived!” The darker-haired man pulled a folded length of cloth from a pocket on the inside of his jacket and unfolded it before wrapping it around the bottom of John’s face, covering his mouth and nose. The fabric itself was blessedly free of scent and as it was wrapped around and around, it successfully blocked out the smells around him. The omega closed his eyes, taking a few moments to settle his senses, bring himself back to himself as he breathed in the scent of clean linen, his mind clearing a little bit even as it still swam and even as his body pounded and ached and cried and burned.

Suddenly, something that had been niggling at him for the last several minutes clicked. “Hang on,” he started, voice muffled by the fabric, “how did you even know I was an omega in the first place?” There was no point in denying it any longer, he was clearly in heat and Moriarty clearly knew it. “Not even my family knows. No one knows.” At that Moriarty smiled and stepped back, yanking on a cord John hadn’t noticed to pull down a large projector screen hanging down from the ceiling. He blamed his condition and his position for not having noticed it before.

"Do you know how incredibly easy it was to spy on you when big brother was doing it already? I dooo~! And really, your life was so utterly dull it's a wonder Sherlock never threw himself off a building before." Anger and grief, sharp and bitter, welled up inside him once more, spilling out in tears down his cheeks. He had handled the pain fine for two years, well, more 'ignored' than 'handled', a living, hollow husk that looked, smelled, and acted like John Watson but couldn't be him because John Watson had died on the pavement outside of Bart's two years ago. But this man, his words, bringing it up so lightly like that, especially in John’s overly hormonal state, was unbearable. And the fact that his grief would hit him this hard when he was already fighting his heat to stay lucid only made him angry at the emotional manipulation.

Since the incident, if he was at all reminded of or thought of Moriarty at all, he would be filled with the same quiet rage that had him killing a cabbie their first night together. With his heat at the helm however, his rage seemed to be fighting a losing battle with his grief. The loss of a mate, even if no bond had been formed, was a deep wound that couldn’t be healed or closed. It was a hole in his chest that couldn’t be filled, and he was almost surprised he was still alive. Losing a bondmate had killed stronger men than him and it was only more painful that he hadn’t followed Sherlock into death, just another reminder that the alpha had never been and was never truly _his_ alpha. Suddenly, a sharp pain across his cheek brought him out of his downward spiral and he brought his eyes up in time to see Moriarty retracting his hand from the slap he had just delivered.

“That’s right, pet,” the other omega said, combing his fingers through John’s hair in a gesture normally meant to calm but only increased his urge to _get away_. “You stay right here with us. There’s something you have to see after all. Let’s call it your birthday present from Daddy.” He couldn’t even be surprised that Jim knew that today was his birthday. “And you did ask... Sebby?” The lights around them dimmed and an image appeared on the screen in front of him. “Now let’s all just sit back and watch this--” Moriarty cut himself off, giggling “--’documentary’ here. I’m sure there’s some enlightening to be had.”

He recognized that image. It was Baker Street. John felt the nausea rise again. How the hell had Moriarty gotten a picture of their sitting room? No, ‘Big Brother’. Mycroft. Of course Mycroft had bugged their flat. And the image was at such a strange angle... It was as if it had been taken from the corner of the ceiling closest to the kitchen, which did not have anything that looked like a camera in it. But a moment later, Sherlock, and then himself, moved on-screen from the direction of the front door and John realized that it wasn’t a picture but a video. More than that, as he watched himself peel off his jumper and smear blood across his face, he recognized when the video had been taken. It was the same night Moriarty had nearly had them shot at the pool. The same night that was John’s most treasured memory.

Bile was rising in his throat for another reason now. Once Sherlock had deleted the memory, only John should have been privy to the events that night and yet this video’s existence meant that Mycroft at the least had seen it, possibly his minions, and now Moriarty was watching it with him and, by the way he was talking, had already watched it at least once. Oh god, he really was going to throw up this time. John closed his eyes, trying to tamper down on the reaction. That same hand slapped his cheek again and his eyes snapped open to glare at the other omega for a moment before returning his eyes to the screen.

It was strange to watch that night from another view, disorienting. The video wasn’t clear enough nor did it provide a close up for him to be able to see Sherlock’s eyes, but it wasn’t difficult to tell by the alpha’s actions when he was of his full mind and when the alpha instincts had taken over. The video saw, at an accelerated pace, Sherlock’s pacing in front of the mantel, Mrs Hudson’s attempt to help John, Sherlock’s reclaiming of John, and John’s creation of the nest, dragging the other man to stand in front of it before the video resumed normal speed.

 _“Nest?”_ John had to bite back a sob at the sound of _his_ voice coming down from somewhere overhead. Two years. It had been two years since he had heard that voice. On screen, Sherlock’s fingers threaded through his hair and John could feel them like a ghost at the back of his head, the ghost of the alpha’s nose trailing his neck. The arousal throbbing through his erection and his arsehole was only growing stronger, his grief and fury at this memory of all memories being dredged up sparking like fresh coals on the furnace of his heat. _“Shhh... Shhh...”_ on-screen Sherlock was murmuring as he pulled on-screen John’s clothes from him. _“Nest. No clothes. Shhh...”_

He remembered the intense feeling of wanting what the feral alpha had been offering but knowing that he couldn’t, in all good conscience, take it. His heart lurched as _“It’s ok. Shhh... Mine”_ came through next. ‘Mine’ Sherlock had called him. And John had been. Still was. But not really, not in the way he desired most. _“Never hate. Mine. It’s ok. Shhh...”_ Sherlock was saying as he finished stripping John and then urged John to remove his own clothes. Sherlock, ‘feral’ as he would have been classified, had been oh-so-gentle in a way that had almost hurt John’s heart to experience. As on-screen Sherlock pulled on-screen him into the nest, the pain in his lower belly, a consistent in the background mesh of aches and pains barely contained by his skin, made itself known by spiking, his internal muscles clenching so violently that it made him want to rip out the uterus that was too busy calling out for an alpha to care about physical comforts. The two-year-old scar on his neck began to feel warm and something tickled at the edge of his senses.

The memory of that night grew stronger as the video progressed and phantom teeth nipped at the nape of his neck as his head on-screen dropped to his chest. Sherlock’s purr was a consistent hum through the speakers, making them buzz lightly and drawing his arousal in larger and stronger pulls. This time around, he had the painful pleasure of watching Sherlock clean his face. Verdigris eyes, dilated to capacity, closed as a pink tongue laved up the side of his face. The expression on Sherlock’s face made his heartbeat skip again: it was calm and, dare he say, _loving_. Because of how the blankets were positioned, there was no way to tell what Sherlock’s hands were doing but for his memory and the expressions on his face on-screen.

Once again, the him on-screen attempted to refuse Sherlock’s actions only to be shushed again, and then, a few moments later, he was moaning like the women in the pornographies he had watched when he was pretending he wasn’t in love with his flatmate. His cock was throbbing painfully at the remembered feel of how Sherlock’s fingers had felt around him and his arsehole fluttered painfully at the remembered feel of how Sherlock’s fingers had felt in him. He was so painfully hard right now, ready to burst any second and yet still so empty. On screen, his and Sherlock’s lips were moving but he couldn’t hear either of them. Suddenly, the buzzing from the speakers shot up so quick it made his ears hurt and what they were speaking so quietly became quite clear.

There had been plenty of studies done on alphas and on omegas. Studies on alphas in and out of rut. Studies on omegas in and out of heat. Studies on unbonded and bonded alphas and omegas both in and out of ruts and heats. Studies on alphas and omegas falling and having already fallen to their instincts (classified as going or being ‘feral’). More studies done still on every combination of all the previous studies. If there was any instance of alphas and omegas together or apart, in singles or in groups, their typical reactions and manners of speech and everything else had been reported and documented.

So, what John was saying, low words gasped between pants and moans ( _“Alpha. My alpha. My strong, clever alpha. Please, mate me. Knot me. Please, my alpha. Please, bond me.”_ ), was well within the realm of what an omega in a suppressed heat fallen to the side of feral might say. Considering he couldn’t remember saying anything like that, that’s obviously what happened. But what Sherlock was murmuring back in calm, steady words, well, that wasn’t normal at all.

 _“Shhh, my omega. My strong, beautiful omega. My strong, beautiful John. We cannot mate yet.”_ On-screen John whimpered even as off-screen John was frozen with what he was hearing. _“Shhh. It’s all right, my John. As soon as the danger has passed, we will be mated. I promise. You are mine. Always mine. My omega, my lovely, clever omega. My John. Mine.”_ Off screen, John was taken over by the sound of his alpha complimenting him, claiming him, and felt a weak orgasm sweep over him, cock pulsing as it dribbled thin streams of ejaculate. Instead of the relief he should have felt at finally orgasming, the tension in his balls renewed almost immediately and a fresh wave of need swept through him so harshly it made him sob through gritted teeth. From the speakers above him he could hear his own voice calling out Sherlock’s name as the on-screen him orgasmed, the alpha’s teeth clamped around the bullet wound on his neck as _he_ orgasmed, the moment obvious in the way grey eyes squeezed shut and in the way Sherlock trembled minutely every few moments, shifts in the blanket telling when the detective’s arm began to move.

“I don’t understand...” John muttered as he watched Sherlock’s shoulder move and phantom fingers rubbed the alpha’s semen into his skin. The video sped up again but it wasn’t hard to tell when the him on-screen fell asleep. Nor was it hard to tell that Sherlock remained awake for hours after his orgasms ceased, simply scenting John, first on one side of his neck and then the other and then back again, back and forth, back and forth. The video suddenly resumed normal speed as Sherlock went limp and John awoke, the exact moment he became truly conscious evident in the way his entire body went tense at once. He watched as the video of himself stood, disappeared, and a short bit later, reappeared only to leave again. Even now he could feel the echo of pain in his heart that that leaving had caused him. What was truly surprising was that, after he had left the flat, Sherlock began to move again.

His hand raised out of the confines of the blanket and John realized it was the same hand that he had jacked him off with. He stared at it for a long while and then, to John’s even greater surprise, pressed one finger between his lips, There was a pause and then Sherlock’s eyes closed and his cheeks hollowed and as John’s heart stopped, he realized that his own semen was still on that hand. And Sherlock was sucking it off. One at a time, the alpha licked the dried come from his fingers before he stood, taking the blankets with him and disappeared out of view in the same direction as his bedroom.

The video accelerated again and John could tell the passing of one...two...three...four days by the way the light in the room brightened and faded in turns. On the fourth day, Sherlock finally emerged from his room fully dressed in full suit and not long later, John appeared. So, Sherlock had stayed in his room the whole time John had been gone? And licked John’s come from his fingers? And the things he said?

“I don’t understand...” he murmured a second time. “How did he know? I’ve never told my parents or my sister. No one... I don’t understand.”

“Yes,” John startled at the voice, having somehow completely forgotten he wasn’t alone. “You did hide it rather marvelously. Never told your parents nor your sister. There was no record whatsoever of your true secondgender, no matter how far back one looked. I’ll admit, I wouldn’t have known if it weren’t for that video. Well done, Johnny. It’s not often someone manages to surprise me. Or know something that I don’t know. Isn’t that right, Sebby?” That smell, the awful one that was like sewage but not quite, worse, was getting stronger again, despite the fabric pressed to his nose. “Don’t you think we should reward him?” The small omega giggled and stepped back but there were more footsteps, ‘Sebby’s’ footsteps, coming at him from behind and then around his chair and Moriarty’s second came into view.

The alpha that ambled into his line of sight was a familiar one with short, light hair, light eyes, a scar down his face, a cigarette in his mouth, and an unmistakable military bearing, dressed in fatigues. “Paul? But you’re Mary’s...” After he had turned down the Mary, him and the nurse had managed to stay on civil ground and in the last couple of months, she had gotten an alphafriend, Paul, a man whom John had gotten to know well enough to invite over for a rugby match or two. That man that had been at his job and in his home was standing in front of him, right next to Moriarty, smirking in a way that terrified the omega in him and set the soldier in him on guard.

“Colonel Sebastian Moran. Pleasure to meet you Captain Watson. I must say, you’ve managed to get pretty far in life for an omega. And unbonded too.” That smirk somehow became even more wicked. “We can change that.” The pheromones the alpha was emitting were getting stronger the longer he stood there. John had smelled these kinds of pheromones thousands of times, the pheromones of an alpha responding to an omega in heat. He should have been responding in kind, responding with his own pheromones and dripping lubricant and begging to be fucked. He probably was dripping lubricant but he only felt an impending sense of danger coupled with a rising nausea stronger than he’d ever felt at the thought that he would be penetrated by anyone who wasn’t Sherlock.

“See, we had to get your suppressants changed out but we couldn’t very well sneak in,” Moriarty explained, lips turning down dramatically at the corners as he spread his hands. “Big Brother has been watching you too closely since Little Brother’s dramatic demise. Patience is rather a strong suit for snipers. Not much difficulty in wearing you down for sake of an invite, was it Sebby?” The alpha shook his head, still smirking.

“Hmmm... You’re warming up rather nicely,” the colonel said suddenly, eyes dilating as he eyed John. He knew that look. He knew what that dilation meant. And even if he didn’t, the ever-growing scent of alpha arousal and the tented trousers were clues enough. “Jim, he almost smells as nice as you, doesn’t he?” The omega nodded, eyes glowing.

“Yes, that pill really is quite something,” the omega agreed, nodding, face calm and gentle, voice reverent, like he was talking about the cure for cancer. “It took quite a while to get it just right, and of course there were a few accidents along the way. But lucky you, Johnny. You’re our guinea pig for the final product. And Sebby here has been generous enough to offer to take you on a test drive.”

“Test drive? Wha...?” Moran stepped off to the side and there was a slow clicking sound as John’s chair began to tilt forward, one notch at a time. When it finally stopped, his legs were straight towards the ground, his feet almost touching the concrete, and his torso was perfectly parallel to the floor. It was a struggle to keep his head pressed back to the wood so that gravity didn’t pull it down and strangle him with the band around his neck. Another breeze tickled across the dampness around his arsehole and he was left feeling uncomfortably aware that his arse was being presented to the open air as slick began to slowly trickle down the back of his thighs.

“Oh Jim, look how nice he looks. So wet. So ready.” John’s head, still fuzzy from whatever had been done to him, was still fighting to clear but a panic was beginning to grow as the seriousness and the implications of the situation began to set in and the tingling on his neck increased. A finger swiped through the slick at the back of his thighs and he tensed, struggling weakly at his metal constraints. A familiar smell he couldn’t place was slowly pressing through the sickening scent of their surroundings and of Moran’s own scent.

“Don’t touch me,” he growled. It was a poor growl and it felt even poorer with his waning strength. Suddenly, he recognized the smell, like something clicking into place. “No,” he gasped. “Where did you get that scent? Where did you get his scent?!” It had been two years but he would still recognize the scent of his chosen alpha anywhere.

“Whose scent, dear?” Moriarty asked, bending to meet his eyes. John was too overwhelmed by the scent that was growing in nose to answer him and after a moment, the omega stood again. “Go on, Sebby. Have a taste,” he heard followed by the sound of tongue over skin and then an approving growl.

“Mmm, so sweet. He tastes so good, Jim. Will you be having him with me?” John shook his head at the question, gasped rejections falling from his lips as panic swelled. He had thought that being on suppressants like he had been meant that he would never have to experience the fear of an impending rape. He was wrong. He was feeling it now. And there was no one who would know he’d gone missing, no one to come save him. His only consolation was that with the chair back in the way, there was no way Moran would be able to get his teeth into John’s scent gland and instigate a bonding. It was a small consolation, especially since he could still get pregnant if he was knotted.

“Perhaps later. You know I enjoy watching you work.” There was the sound of footsteps, the sharp click of heels rather than the thud of boots, and then someone was squatting down besides him, Moriarty’s smug expression ducking down to meet his. “You’ll enjoy this, Johnny. Your first heat and with a real alpha too, instead of some boring old silicone toys. And we’ve got plenty of time to play before our guest of honour arrives.”

“Guest--” he was cut off suddenly as a finger dipped into him and he hissed in pain, face crinkling. It was hot. And not in a pleasant way. What the fuck was going on? What had they put on the colonel’s finger? It shouldn’t be that hot. “Get that out of me. What--?” The finger withdrew, the sound of sucking following a moment later. His instant relief was short-lived as the sound of a zipper was quickly followed by something much larger and blunter pressing against his hole, a burning igniting in the muscles of his sphincter as he gasped again. Fuck that hurt. What the hell was--

A hot length pressed into him and, by all known research, being both an unbonded omega and an omega in heat, it should have done nothing but relieve the painful itch and bottomless need that had filled him since he had woken. It should have made him feel full and safe and owned. Instead, it _burned_. A scream was ripped from his throat as the alpha bottomed out and a pair of bollocks pressed against his own, and a fire unlike anything he’d ever felt set in along his internal walls. Worse than the bullet that had nicked his throat, worse than the bullet that had pierced his shoulder, worse than the infection that had nearly killed him after. Worse than all three things combined. The length in him pulled out (temporary relief), before it pressed in again, renewing the burning, inflaming it. He screamed again. Or maybe he hadn’t stopped.

The alpha wasted no time with slow thrusts to stretch him out or ease him into it. He established a quick, brutal pace immediately, fingers a bruising hold around the outsides of his thighs as the chair held him steady against the poundings. The horror of the violation he was being subjected to was was buried beneath the flames sparking from his arsehole outwards, consuming everything from the inside out, worsening the longer the rape continued. It felt like something with claws had crawled up through his arse, clawing open organs as it progressed, ripping him open from the inside. As the burn spread, it tingled through his insides, burning his intestines, making his heart clench, his brain interpreting pain from places the burn shouldn’t have even reached. It was paralyzing his spine and setting fire to every nerve ending from his toes to the top of his head, and all he could do was scream and cry and struggle furtively in his bonds. His jaw clenched and his teeth snapped and all he wished for was to get his teeth into the jugular of the alpha violating him and the omega commanding it. And even though he knew his alpha was dead, he wished for him too.

He had hoped that the pain would layer, old stings dulling the way to the new, fading away to numbness as the alpha continued to thrust, but if anything, the pain only got worse. What had started as a candle’s flame was being fanned into a roaring bonfire and he was burning alive in it. He still couldn’t tell if he was screaming anew or if he had never stopped. There was an additional pressure growing at his sphincter, the alpha’s knot expanding and getting ready to pierce him, bumping against his entrance with every thrust, pressing a little further in each time, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Suddenly, the cause of the heat withdrew and John’s screaming was slowly replaced with sobs as his body tried to recover from the still-lingering burning. He hadn’t been knotted, the fact that the alpha had able to withdraw was proof of that, which meant that he wasn’t bonded and he wasn’t going to get pregnant, and his relief at that minor silver lining only made him sob harder. He couldn’t stand being so emotional but he couldn’t seem to get anything under control, the chemicals in his system throwing his control into chaos. And God help him, the _burning_ was still there.

“Those are not my pheromones.” Moran’s voice came from somewhere far away, as if his screaming had worn out John’s ears as much as his throat. “Those are bondmate pheromones. Jim, you said he wasn’t bonded.” Tears were continuously filling his eyes, new ones replacing old every time he blinked and they fell down his cheeks, the ones caught in his lashes blurring his vision as a dark form ducked in front of him again. Fingers danced over his sweat-slicked skin, and he hissed, tensing away from touch. The fingers only pressed harder, touching everywhere. Jabbing at the bullet scars on his neck and shoulder, sliding along the other tens of scars littering his skin.

“That’s because there is no bondmark. He is not bonded.” Instead of sounding angry, Moriarty only sounded amused, intrigued, as if this were a new puzzle just for his entertainment, a tone John was very much familiar with from someone else. His tears seemed to have been used up as his sobs slowly became pants, but his nose was being filled up with a scent he had only ever smelled once before: the scent of Sherlock’s territorial pheromones. The same ones he had been surrounded with the same night as the night of the video.

“Oh god, Sherlock. Where did you get his scent?!” he gasped, throat sore and scratchy from his screaming. He jumped when he received a slap to his bum.

“Hush, pet. Daddy is trying to think. Let’s see... Bonded omegas will always emit the scent of their bondmates when threatened, especially when threatened sexually, or just in heat in general, I suppose,” Moriarty mused from somewhere behind him. “But therein lies the mystery, pet, as you are not bonded.”

“Wrong.” John started at the new voice, the familiar voice, eyes searching out the video screen to see if it was still playing something, just another day from the life they once lived together. But the screen was dark, the speakers silent. Then where had-- “He does not bear my bondmark but he is still bonded.” The voice seemed to come from all around, echoing slightly in the empty warehouse

“Why, it looks like our guest of honour has finally arrived, and with such a treat, too,” Moriarty said from somewhere above him. “Aw, Sherly, you shouldn’t have. I knew you were infatuated with your pet but this is rather special, isn’t it?” The scent of Sherlock was getting stronger, surrounding him like a blanket, warming a heart that had felt nothing but cold for far too long.

Distantly, John became aware that he was shaking his head, muttering, “No no no, you’re dead, you’re not here, you’re not real.” A hand slapped his bum again.

“Hush now, pet. Come on out and play, Sherly.There’s plenty of room for all of us. And Johnny here looks to be getting a little lonely. Sebby might have to resume his entertainment.” A low growl filled the air, threatening and loud.

“If you wish for your dog to remain unneutered, it would be wise for it to move away from my omega before I join you. Alpha instincts are not as easy to control as other biological urges.”

“Mm. I suppose you have been gone a while. Go ahead and say ‘hi’ to your pet. They never seem to react well to their master’s absence. Come on over here with me, Sebby.” Two sets of footsteps, one pair of boots and one pair of dress shoes, retreated and then the only sounds breaking the silence of the warehouse were coming from John, his crying, his panting, his denial. Despite the fire still rampant and radiating from his arsehole, his erection was still throbbing, and the rushing sound in his head hadn’t dissipated, creating a strange sound in his ears. From far away came quiet, measured footsteps, closer and closer. Footsteps he knew.

“It can’t be,” he whispered, head still shaking. “I watched you die. You didn’t have a pulse.” The footsteps stopped right beside his chair.

“John. Can you hear me?” A face popped into view. A face he thought he’d never see again.

“Sherlock?” he breathed, wanting to believe his eyes but not daring to hope.

“Happy Birthday, John.” John was going to punch him. Two years of grieving through an apparently fake death, and the first thing his best friend says is ‘Happy Birthday’? Yeah, he was going to punch him. “I’m going to turn the chair rightways up.” And then his face disappeared and there was that slow clicking sound again, the chair slowly righting until it was back in the same position as when he had first awoken. He could see Moriarty and Moran standing off to the side by a pillar, the latter still dressed but with his erection jutting out from between parted zipper, the veiny skin shiny from John’s heat slick. After the chair stopped moving, Sherlock came right back around in front of him, stepping in close between his legs and blocking the other two from his view.

“You fucking bastard!” he shouted, pulling at his restraints, wanting nothing more right now than to deck his friend and then ride his cock right through the floor. “You’re still alive and you never told me! I want to hate you so much right now! Do you have any idea what you fucking put me through, you fucking prick?!” He was screaming by the end, happiness and anger and relief and arousal and fury and sadness beating up against the fear and panic the situation still afforded. “And I’m not your mate, you tosser! Even if you would never take me as a mate you FUCKING LEFT ME, YOU BASTARD!”

John finally broke down into sobs, the soldier part of him cringing at the rampant display of emotion and sentiment that was sure to scare away the alpha in front of him. The fabric about his face was being tugged away and then a softer fabric, smelling strongly and entirely of Sherlock, was wrapped loosely around his mouth and nose before long fingers slowly began carding through his hair. Slowly, the combination of the long-missing scent and the ministrations through his hair calmed him into silence broken only by his ragged breathing. When he finally got himself under control, he opened eyes that burned from the tears to take in dark curls that had grown wild, pale skin that had gotten even paler, high cheekbones gone gaunt, and the familiar Belstaff that seemed a little more threadbare than when he’d last laid eyes on it.

“I’m still incredibly mad with you right now,” he muttered, voice soft from the strain on his throat and muffled by what he was sure was Sherlock’s ever-present scarf, “and as soon as we get out of this you had better fucking explain yourself to my satisfaction. Do you understand me, Sherlock?”

“Of course, John,” the alpha responded, his voice just as soft, soft enough that only he could hear, but solid, just like always. It was a minor comfort. “I will answer any questions you have. But you are my mate. You have been since that night.” The hands on his hair dropped down to his neck, fingers slipping beneath the scarf to press lightly against his skin. Unlike the touch of Moriarty and of Moran, this skin-on-skin contact was very welcome and he moaned lightly as it lit a more welcome fire under his skin. A thumb traced the straight-line bullet scar on his neck and his cock jumped in interest as his arsehole throbbed in invite. “My mark on you was, admittedly, far from conventional, and as it had never been done before, I was not quite sure it would work for my purposes. But it has done what it was supposed to. It marked you as mine and imbued your scent gland with enough of my pheromones to discourage additional suitors. Not as much of a discouragement as I had hoped though.”

“I don’t understand,” John muttered, eyes falling closed as he tried to concentrate on the pleasure the other’s touch brought.

“I know you do not. But I will explain to you later, if you will let me.” The emotion broadcast so nakedly across Sherlock’s face was as strong or stronger than what John had heard when the alpha was atop the roof at Bart’s. Stunned, John felt himself nodding. There was a spike of pheromones from Sherlock, the scent of an alpha locked on their omega, and it made both John’s arousal and the burning in his arse flare and he hissed. The flaring of the pain, coupled with the appearance of his alpha and his alpha inserting himself between his mate and the threat to his mate, allowed his mind to clear, his more logical faculties slowly returning to him like he was forcing them to surface.

“Ok. God, yes, ok, Sherlock,” he whispered. “You smell so fucking good but it really fucking burns. I thought they’d put something on his skin and that’s why it burned so much when he penetrated me but if you really did bond me... Fuck, that explains everything.” Alphas could bond to as many omegas as they wanted, but an omega could only bond with one alpha, nature’s way of ensuring protection of the omega and the omega’s offspring, the latter of which an alpha would rid the omega of, like a cuckoo, if a new matebond overrode the original one. If an omega went into heat, and their inhibitions were shut down by the need to simply be bred, then if an alpha not their own tried to mount them, the mating mark would begin to exude the true alpha’s pheromones and the penetration would burn so that the omega would try to get away and get to their alpha rather than any alpha. “Do you know how much that fucking hurt? Fucking hell, Sherlock.” His alpha’s expression grew thunderous, territorial pheromones exploding from him so suddenly they made John gasp, his arousal throbbing at the display of power and possession. He groaned when the arousal triggered a responding flare of first pleasure, then pain from the residual burning in his arsehole. “Oh god that’s lovely but it makes the burn worse, you git. If you’re going to be arousing me, you need to clean me out first. If you did mate me, even in some small way, as long as his DNA is inside me, it will burn.”

Sherlock was still for a long moment before he reached into one of his coats’s internal pockets and pulled out a handkerchief. He folded it into smaller pieces before sticking the whole thing in his mouth and when he pulled it back out, the linen was soaked with saliva. The cloth in his right hand, his left still caressing the bullet wound, the alpha dropped to a crouch between John’s legs, his head level with John’s cock, lips tantalizingly close to the leaking head. Without warning, two cloth-covered fingers pressed into him, and he tensed automatically, the fingers stilling until he forced himself to relax and they resumed their press. He wanted to push back against his alpha’s fingers but the metal band was still around his waist and even if it wasn’t he was still pressed as close as he could get to the wood already so he settled for a plaintive whine as the fingers reached and swiped at his walls. His alpha’s saliva in his most vulnerable place was a balm to the burn, soothing over everything like aloe to a sunburn.

“Thank you,” he whispered, eyes closing as relief swept over him. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” The fingers left him but before he could whimper a protest, something long, warm, and plastic pressed into him, nudging his prostate. “Holy shit,” he moaned, head falling back against the wood of the chair.

“John,” Sherlock’s voice was so quiet he almost didn’t hear it. Even still, he had to strain to do so. “I’m going to need you to trust me. I’m going to have to hurt you and I’m sorry but I need you to trust me. No matter what I do or say, understand?”

John nodded, opening his mouth to confirm when whatever was inside him jabbed his prostate so hard that it hurt and he shouted in pain.

“What the fuck!” The thing jabbed him again and he squirmed, trying to escape it. “Sherlock, stop it!”

“Shut up.” Sherlock’s voice, now loud and clear, startled him into looking at the man who was staring at him with an expression so hard that it made John’s insides squirm.

“Sher--” An even hard jab made him scream.

“I said shut up, omega.” The word was said with absolute disdain, like those who thought omegas were just for breeding and were good for nothing else. The tone made the omega in him recoil even as the soldier’s fury exploded.

“What the fuck is wrong with y-- AAAAH!” Another harsh jab and _fuck_ it _hurt_ but his arousal wasn’t fading. Sherlock’s territorial pheromones were though and it was beginning to scare him.

“I see you haven’t changed,” came the derisive observation.

“I see you have. Get the fuck away from me!” he shouted, struggling against his bonds. Sherlock ‘hm’ed and stood, withdrawing his fingers but whatever was inside him stayed there. The alpha stared at his slick-covered fingers and John could see Moriarty and Moran walk into view from behind the detective, watching his alpha with rapt curiosity to see what he would do next. He licked tentatively at one fingertip and his face wrinkled in disgust.

“You found that delicious?” Sherlock scoffed in a way that made John’s heart clench in pain. The detective shed his Belstaff and draped it over one of John’s bound legs before taking the scentless-scarf he had pulled off John’s face and wiping his fingers on it as he turned and walked towards the waiting pair. When he appeared to be done, he flung the scarf at Moran who caught it, a hungry look in his eyes as he brought it to his nose and sniffed it with a vigor that made John’s stomach curdle.

“How about an exchange?” John blinked in surprise at his alpha’s words and despite the git’s last actions, he didn’t want to see his mate in his place.

“Goddamnit, Sherlo--” he was suddenly cut off as electricity flooded his system again. When he came back to himself, he was panting and Sherlock, Moriarty, and Moran were staring at him. Sherlock was holding a small white remote in his hand.

“You know how much I hate having to repeat myself, John,” he was told before being presented with the alpha’s back. The consulting criminal was eyeing the consulting detective, a flick of interest in his eyes smoothing into a complete lack thereof a split second later.

“An exchange? Yourself for him? Sherly, do please stop being so obvious,” Moriarty scoffed with an eye roll.

“Don’t be dull, Jim,” Sherlock snapped and John’s curiosity, as well as Moriarty’s judging by the look in his eyes, rose as he waited with bated breath for the explanation. “If your alpha wants my omega so bad, then I want his.”

John’s heart stopped.


	5. Triple Bluff

It was a Holmes trait to either have no emotions or to have extreme control over them, and Sherlock was not exempt from that. But John was always an exception, and when he had learned what Moriarty had planned for his omega, the possessive rage that filled him had almost broken through his control and it had been a fight against himself to actually _think_ and _plan_ rather than explode and destroy everything around him. The same fight had popped up again when he had arrived at the grouping of warehouses and the strength of the omega-in-distress pheromones buffeting his nose had almost suffocated him from the next building over from where John was being held. And then again when listening to the way John was screaming as he was being raped. And now again with the taste of John’s anger and grief and fear and arousal and pain strong on his tongue and the scent of John’s heat in his nose, corrupted as it was by the scent of the alpha and omega that had violated him.

Sherlock had always been quite dramatic, as Mycroft liked to so frequently remind him, and he was used to putting on shows for the benefit others. Shows of misdirection were his specialty really, and he used them most during cases to trick witnesses or suspects into giving him the information he needed. Two years ago he had put on his most elaborate show ever, a show of suicide to protect his mate, and Mrs Hudson and Lestrade, from assassination. Their connection, the bond between them, he had felt wobble, indecisive as to whether or not it would remain whole after the way he had broken his mate’s heart. To his great relief, it did not break then, something that could have well killed both of them, even if the bond wasn’t completed properly and fully. Now he was about to put on another show, but a more dangerous one, one that had the potential to break them both past the point of repair. But if it would prevent John’s further rape and forced bonding, and if it would allow him to exact his revenge on the ones that had forced him from his mate, endangered his mate, raped his mate, then it would be worth it.

Even with that knowledge, it took incredible effort to school his expression and tone into one of disgust at the small taste of John’s musk (he’d never tasted anything better) and to keep his heart rate steady. The alpha in him was raging against his control ( _rip tear shred destroy the threat protect the mate_ ) and at the same time it begged to mount his omega ( _mount fuck breed bond mate plant the seed secure the line_ ). When he had thrown the scarf holding the remains of John’s musk to Moran, he had taken the opportunity to liberate the colonel ( _military stance, calluses from frequent gun use, one eye squinting more than the other when looking in the distance, no apparent reasons for medical discharge; military sniper, dishounorable discharge, likely working for Moriarty long before discharge, the last sniper, the one that had been trained on John, the one he hadn't been able to find because he had been at Moriarty's side_ ) of the shock collar remote. It’s weight in his hand after using it on John was scientifically and impossibly heavy and it only felt heavier with the realization that he was going to have to use it again.

“Excuse me, you _what_?!” John shouted behind him in the captain’s voice he loved to use and that the detective loved to listen to. Sherlock raised his hand to be within eyesight of both omega’s, met Moriarty’s eyes, and pressed the button, holding down for an exact count of seven before letting go, not breaking eye contact. He knew that John was going to fight him despite saying he would trust Sherlock and Sherlock was counting on that to make his show believable, but he was concerned that if he was forced to use the shock collars on John too much that it would cause irreversible damage. He turned to make eye contact with his omega.

“You’ve spoken out of turn seven times. Continue to do so and each infraction will add another second onto my hold time. Is that understood, captain?” John’s glare was absolutely murderous but he stayed mercifully quiet as his chin jerked once in forced acknowledgement. Sherlock ‘hm’-ed in satisfaction and turned his attention back to the other omega. “So, Jim. What do you say?” He received an amused smile in return.

“You want my pet to have your pet? Interesting. And why would you want that?”

“The same reason you told me right before you...’killed yourself’--which was quite convincing by the way, dud bullet, sound effects, and blood pack I’d wager: he’s boring.” There was a sharp intake of breath from John and the scent of grief swelled drastically, only selling Sherlock’s show. It was John’s greatest fear--that one day Sherlock would stop finding him interesting, that he would figure him out, like how The Woman had become boring as soon as he’d figured her out. To have that fear confirmed aloud would be painful. But perhaps not as painful as what he would have to do shortly. The show he was putting on now was for Moriarty’s benefit, but from the ebb and flow of grief tickling his olfactory system, he knew his omega now feared that what Sherlock had said to him when he’d arrived had been the show, and that what he was saying now was the truth.

Moran was edging closer to John with a hungry look in his eye and the fabric covered in John’s scent pressed tight against his nose. Sherlock growled in warning and the other alpha stopped, both him and Moriarty staring at him. “Biological instincts,” he sneered in response to their looks. “Hateful. Unfortunately such instincts will remain in effect as long as the bond remains intact.

“Yes, the bond, Sherly,” Moriarty said with the same kind of forced giggle he seemed fond of. “You want me to believe you’re _bored_ of your pet when you’ve kept the bond active for over two years?”

“Obvious,” Sherlock scoffed in return. “I wasn’t likely to get another opportunity to install such a mark, no reason to dissolve it early. I had work to do and the bond was still useful. A consulting criminal to stop. A web to untangle. And then you had to go through the trouble of telling me John would be killed if I were to stay alive. No easier alarm that I’d been discovered than the breaking of a bond I’d already put in place. Of course there were others in place, obvious since I am here and yet John is still alive.” Moriarty gave him a doubtful look with a smirk, as if that told him something.

“Then _why_ is it still there?” the omega pressed.

“It requires quite a bit of energy to break a bond, as if you were not aware, which I was using for other things. Do you accept?” he pressed back, tone and expression carefully blank. Moriarty smiled and raised an eyebrow, spreading his hands in an indication of patient waiting. He didn’t look at John as he concentrated on the bond starting in his heart. There was a strangled gasp from behind him that he carefully ignored as he _stretched_ the bond. He apologized to his mate silently for everything he’d gone through and everything he was going through and everything he was about to go through. When a bond was broken, it always hurt the one who was left more than it hurt the one who was leaving. Now the gasp became a pained cry, and still he stretched stretched stretched until the bond grew much too thin and much too brittle. And still, he stretched.

“What is that? Sherlock, what are you doing?” John was crying, his voice raising until he was screaming. “STOP STOP STOP THAT WHAT ARE YOU DOING _WHAT ARE YOU DOING_?!” Deep inside, the bond fractured and his mate’s screams turned wordless. The sound was even more pained and terrified than when he was being raped. It broke his heart to hear it, filled him with that black rage again. He wanted to hurt the one causing his mate such pain but it was him causing the pain. Perhaps when this was all over, when John was safe and happy, when Moriarty and his pet were dead, he would remove himself from John’s life, perhaps remove himself from life entirely. It was hell to be the one that caused his omega so much pain. He never wanted to do it again, and since he was so apt at it, perhaps if he weren’t around, he couldn’t cause his beloved any pain at all.

The bond snapped and the screaming stopped. Sherlock stumbled at the strange combination of sharp pain and hollowness in his heart and in shock at the sudden lack of sound. John’s sudden silence was more terrifying than his screaming, which had been replaced with the faint sound of chains jingling. Blinking and trying to adjust to the absolute strangeness of his bond, the bond that had been his constant and only comfort these last two years, being utterly gone, Sherlock turned to face the omega (still) in heat. The sight of the doctor convulsing violently in his bonds and the empty echo in his heart caused by a complete and utter lack of proof that the bond had ever existed at all made the detective want to rage and rip and tear and destroy and whatever else he needed to do to get his mate back and re-establish the bond at whatever cost, at any cost.

With all the strength of his massive will, he pushed the feeling into the absolute depths of his self and straightened, all expression falling from his face as John fell as still as he was silent. The only sign that John had survived the break, that he was still alive, was that the scent of his heat was still slowly strengthening rather than fading. Moran sprang forward, rushing at John and running his nose along the omega’s neck, scenting him, verifying the disappearance of the previous alpha’s claim and grinning triumphantly as the lingering territorial pheromones faded, his own spiking. Hating himself just that much more, Sherlock ignored the ongoings just meters from him and slunk closer to Moriarty, running his own nose up and down the omega’s neck, humming in pleasure.

“Hmmm... You smell much more delightful now, dear Jim. How interesting.” He nipped lightly at the skin that made him want him to be sick at the taste of before pulling his head back and going back towards the other side of his neck, catching sight of Moriarty’s own triumphant expression before he scented the opposite scent gland and nipping at the skin. He hummed again and ran his tongue from open collar to the back of his ear, pushing him back until he had the omega pressed against the nearest pillar. With the new form of support, he rutted his erection against the smaller man’s stomach, letting a fire fill his eyes as he tipped his head back to look Moriarty in the eye.

He knew how he would look right now: eyes glazed, cheeks flushed, hair mussed, entirely and utterly aroused. He focused all his attention on his counterpart, pressing a leg between the other’s thighs, feeling an answering erection against his hip.

“How close are you to your heat, Jim? You smell...” he drifted off to moan obscenely, sucking a section of skin between his teeth hard enough to mark, fighting his own desire to dig his teeth deep and rip hard. “You smell good enough to eat. You smell so close, like I could bond and mark and breed you right here and now.” Moriarty let out a high-pitched giggle, every bit of it a loud pronouncement of his victory. He grasped at Sherlock’s wrists and suddenly flipped them, leaning in to Sherlock’s space to nip at his neck instead. Sherlock growled low and bucked his hips, as if seeking friction but only trying to prevent the wrong omega from marking him.

“Oh you are indeed changed, aren’t you, Sherlock. How boring has it been for you?” Sherlock dropped his head back and groaned in real frustration. It hadn’t even been the right kind of challenge, dismantling the web. Dull and tedious, something John’s presence could have alleviated with ease, as it always did. Moriarty giggled once more. “I see. Well, heat’s not for another few days. I think you can hold off till then.” The detective huffed and dropped his head forward to nibble a small ear.

“Then why don’t we watch?” he whispered, nipping at the cartilage. The omega released his wrists to let Sherlock’s arms drop around his waist before turning in the same hold to watch Sebastian touching John, running his fingers along his spread thighs and up his chest and along an erection that was still as solid as it had been since his heat had started to rise. His other hand was wrapped around his own cock as he occupied his mouth with the skin of John’s neck, licking, but not yet biting, not yet marking. John wasn’t moving at all, his head drooped against his raised bicep and braced by the back of the chair, his eyes open but glazed and empty leaned against the back of his chair, eyes open and glazed and empty. The sight made Sherlock ill. _‘Please hold on just a bit longer, my John.’_

“I do like watching Seb work, you know,” Moriarty informed him as he walked forward. Sherlock’s arms tightened around him and he stuck close to the small back as they ambled towards the other couple. He remembered the feel of John in front of him, bare skin pressed against bare skin, the smell of their combined arousal thick in the temporary nest John had built. If he played his cards right, it wouldn’t be long until he would get the chance again. And again. And again. And again. Only this time, it would be done correctly and he would make sure John asked for his bondmark before he gave it. And it would be given with pleasure.

“Can I, boss?” the other alpha asked as they stopped by John’s hip.

“I don’t know,” Jim smirked, bending down to put his face right in front of John’s and using the opportunity to press his arse against Sherlock’s erection tenting the front of his trousers. If he hadn’t been breathing in John’s gorgeous, delectable heat scent, his arousal would have flagged entirely at the mere scent of arousal from the omega that wasn’t _his_ , but he growled and thrust his pelvis forward in the required, expected response. “ _Can_ you?” Sebastian huffed in annoyance and glared at his boss, the glare travelling over where Sherlock was wrapped around him, but he was too caught up in an omega-in-heat to put up a fight for another alpha infringing on a claimed omega right now.

“ _May_ I?” he amended with a growl, ripping off his shirt before he’d said the first word and ripping off his trousers and pants before he’d said the second. The alpha part of Sherlock was pleased that the other alpha’s cock, fully erect, was significantly inferior to his own. Not that it would matter, soon.

“Yes, you may,” Moriarty was giggling again. Sherlock continued nibbling at his neck and began to occupy his hands with the buttons on what was no doubt another Westwood as the other alpha moved to stand behind John.

“And may _I_ fuck you anyway?” Sherlock murmured into his ear. “No reason for them to have all the fun. How do you feel about being bent over John’s leg here while I take you from behind?” There was a shiver down the consulting criminal’s spine and a whimper that couldn’t be faked. He deepened his voice as he let his teeth nip at the fleshy lobe. “How much do you like sucking cock? What about an omega cock? What about John’s cock? He looks so lonely. Your colonel can only occupy a needy hole, what about his needy cock?” Jim was panting now, grinding back against Sherlock’s erection.

“You promise?” the shorter man panted. In response, Sherlock ripped open Moriarty’s jacket, waistcoat, and shirt in one move before moving on to the belt, shoving him over John’s leg as he shimmied trousers and pants down slim thighs while Sebastian moved around the other leg to John’s back. _‘Hurry hurry hurry,’_ he could only repeat over and over and over. He pressed both hands to the thin hips and held hard, leaning back and using his thumbs to pull up on the skin of his arse cheeks.

“You said you’re still a few days away from your heat, Jim? You’re starting to drip already. How fascinating. I’ll have to find out what I can do to get you to agree to some experiments. I’ve never been this close to an omega I’ve actually wanted to touch before.” He leaned down to breath deep, glad for his position to hide the sight of him trying not to gag. He had tasted and smelled all sorts of omegas in and out of heat before but he’d never before enjoyed any of it, most of it repulsing him, until John. During his travels away from John, he had been in close proximity with more omegas, again, both in and out of heat, and still, only John’s scent and taste were acceptable. Moriarty was no different in this regard, and perhaps it was his hate for the man that made the scent of his musk and the taste of his skin fall to the side of repulsive.

“Do you like being fucked hard, Jim? I’ve heard that John likes to be taken hard.” He knew that Sebastian had perked up at the mention of his new omega’s name and was listening closely, one hand roaming John’s chest and down to his cock as the other held his own cock, paused in the middle of guiding it to John’s opening. The same opening that was slowly dripping musk to the concrete floor. It wasn’t the quick, gushing of a full heat, but the slow beginning. He wondered how much longer they had before it began in full. “I’ll admit, ever since I’d found that out, I’d wondered if that was unique to him or if it was a trait shared by all omegas. I’ve never actually fucked an omega before, Jim. Will you make it good for me?” Moriarty was moaning and panting wantonly, rubbing his exposed arsehole against Sherlock’s cock, desperate enough to try piercing himself on a still-clothed alpha cock.

“Yes, Sherly, fuck me hard. Fuck me harder than you’ve ever fucked your fist. How about a competition? Seb likes competitions, don’t you?” The colonel was nodding as he watched them, eyes wide in fascination and mouth gaping in awe, still poised just before entering his target. “I think it’s an alpha thing, competitiveness. Let’s see who can fuck their omega the hardest. Oh yes. It’s a competition between you two but we’ll reap the benefits quite nicely, won’t we, birthday boy?” The bound omega was still silent and blank, unblinking, unmoving, hardly breathing, but Moriarty giggled and patted the thigh underneath him before reaching forward to stroke the unattended and leaking omega cock so close to his face. John didn’t even flinch when a hand wrapped around his erection, didn’t blink. There was no indication that he even noticed at all.

“Jim, Jim, Jim. That’s not fair. You know I can’t resist a challenge,” Sherlock growled, grinding his pelvis against the arse in front of him, meeting Sebastian eyes. He jammed two fingers into the omega’s damp arsehole without warning and the man howled quite unattractively. The alphas met eyes and smirked. “I won’t go easy, and you’d better not either,” he growled at the colonel as he pumped his fingers in and out and then jamming in a third. The colonel smirked and then turned his eyes back to his own cock, as Sherlock wrapped his hand around to stroke the erection of the omega beneath him. _‘So close so close I am so close we are almost there.’_

“I hope you’re ready, omega,” the colonel said. “Because I am going to fuck you raw and you’ll be begging for my knot before the end,” he growled through a smirk. His hand was wrapped tight around his own cock and John still didn’t respond as the tip rested against his entrance. Both of the alpha’s hands went to John’s waist, gripping tight, pausing for just a moment as he breathed in deep the scent of an omega in heat... and then he thrust. He groaned deep, pausing for a moment before he went to pull out, hips jerking with the motion, and then he _screamed_ like John had screamed not too long ago.

Moriarty jerked up at the sound but Sherlock didn’t give him the chance to say or do anything. He pulled his fingers nearly free and then shoved the entirety of his fist in and up, hard, as hard as was physically possible. Hard enough to rip the delicate creases of the sphincter and through muscle and organs, all the way through his anus and up into his stomach. Anger was a fantastic fuel for adrenaline, and adrenaline was a fantastic fuel for strength. And now Jim was screaming too as Sherlock yanked his blood covered fist free, pulling the large intestine with him.

His alpha instincts had been screaming at him for so long, demanding blood, and now that John could no longer be harmed, now that his omega was no longer in immediate danger, the demand could be met, and with relish. Both injured men were screaming and bleeding and Moriarty, being the closest, would be first.

He threaded one hand through the short, dark hair and yanked, removing the unwelcome body from his omega’s leg and threw him to floor, the back of his skull making a sharp crack as it hit the concrete. The end of the intestine still in his hand, the other end was still hanging from from the bleeding rectum and so he pulled, other hand joining to tug hand-over-hand, his skin quickly becoming slippery with blood. He didn’t bother stopping until the small intestine was laying by his shoes on the damp concrete. All the while, Moriarty, and Moran, were still screaming, the sound both painful to his ears and music to his instincts. Sherlock dropped the organ and leaned over the omega to flip him to his stomach and then crouch between his knees. He felt barely capable of speech, not unlike the night after the meeting at the pool, but this time, the cause was from anger rather than arousal, and he holding it together as best as he could. It was not yet safe to give into his instincts in full as he so wanted.

“You tried taking him from me.” He forced the fingers of both hands into the fluttering hole, gripping the edges tightly and ignoring the flapping hands and feet weakly trying to push him away. “More than once, in more than one way. You will not be making that mistake again. You will not be making anything again.” Adrenaline and the ever-surging flow of territorial and protective pheromones lent him strength needed to pull and rip the smaller man open. The sphincter, dampened only by blood and not at all stretched, ripped along the creases, the tears spreading outward both ways, towards both spine and penis. That was the thing about skin: once torn, it liked to keep going. The screaming just went on and on and on as he flipped him back over. Moriarty was staring at him with wild, crazed eyes. It was difficult to say if the craze was from the pain or if it was just him. He’d seen it before, on the rooftop at Bart’s. He tipped the omega’s head in the direction of his alpha, forcing him to watch as the man tried everything he could to remove the device from his penis. An anti-rape [device](http://www.snopes.com/photos/crime/rapex.asp) he’d picked up whilst in South Africa, which could only be removed via surgery. Or dismemberment. And he would make sure the latter came true before the end.

“Your web has been swept away, Moriarty. You and your sniper were the last strands. But you know that. That’s why we’re here. Right now, your life is slipping away, and then I will take his as well.” One arm was drenched up to the elbow in blood, the other just up to the wrist, and it made him glad he’d put his scarf and Belstaff on John. His scent was no longer clean and he would need to wrap John in something of his when they left or else there would be more bloodshed but of innocents rather than those who deserved it. “I’ve waited for more than four years for your death, Moriarty. And this time, I will make sure you are dead.” Moriarty kept screaming even as Sherlock shoved his arm back up the gaping hole to the shoulder, reaching past ribs to grab the heart and yank it out. The screaming faded rather than cutting off, but it blended in nicely with the screams of the other interloper.

Sherlock stood and approached the colonel who was braced against one of the pillars not far from John. The man was trying to pull the anti-rape condom that the detective had pressed into John after cleaning him out that the colonel had thrust right into. But the condom was filled with barbs that were smooth going in and dug in trying to pull out. The harder Moran pulled on the plastic casing, the harder it dug into his penis and the harder he screamed. The sight was most satisfying but it was not satisfying enough. That cock had been in John and for that, it would need to be removed entirely.

The alpha looked up as Sherlock strode forward, the genius greeting him with hard jab with the side of his hand to his throat followed by a harsh kick to the inside of a kneecap. The man crumpled to the floor, still screaming and now flailing. The detective stepped on one arm, sliding his foot to the wrist before distributing all his weight on the bone, feeling it snap beneath his weight. There was a feral kind of snarl on his face as he reached down to grasp the plastic tubing tight and pulled as hard as he was able, twisting as he pulled. The sound of this particular flesh being ripped free didn’t sound quite like how Moriarty’s had sounded but it was infinitely more satisfying, Moran’s screams only getting louder and higher-pitched with every strip tissue that broke off. The wrist not under his foot flailed and caught him at the side of his knee and he growled as he got it under his other foot and stomped down, feeling it snap with a crack as satisfying as the first. Both heels holding a wrist down, he reached down and ripped each testicle free as well.

Sherlock rolled the other alpha over, bleeding and screaming, and shoved his own cock up his own arse and the screaming seemed to peak. The number of secondgenderqueer alphas were few and far between, and as they weren’t built for it, required a lot of preparation before they could be taken that way. He should be suffering from a perforated colon, much like the American case where a man had prompted a horse to [mount](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enumclaw_horse_sex_case) him, as Sherlock rolled Moran back over onto his back. Sherlock dropped to a knee directly under Moran’s diaphragm, digging in, driving the breath so suddenly from the alpha’s lungs that he went silent as Sherlock’s blood-covered hands wrapped around a thick throat.

“ _ **You should have never touched what was mine!**_ ” he growled violently, slowly tightening his grip until hands at the end of broken wrists flailed uselessly at his shoulders. “ _ **The omega is mine**_ ,” he snarled. “ _ **JOHN. IS. MIIIIINE!**_ ” he roared, shoving down on the throat with all his weight until the alpha below him went blue in the face and the blood vessels in his eyes began to pop and the windpipe beneath his palms began to crush under his weight. He lifted off slightly before dropping down with all his body weight and all the force of gravity until the throat was crushed and the alpha was dead.


	6. Aerial Screw

Sherlock had gone nearly feral, most all thoughts in his mind obliterated except that the interlopers were dead which meant that the mate was finally safe. Both corpses were lying just a meter from his mate, too close, so he quickly and aggressively shoved them another meter away, their bodies leaving a bloody trail as they slid across the concrete and hit a nearby pillar. The taste of the omega-not-his was still lingering on his tongue so he ripped off his shirt, scrubbing his tongue with the tail before wiping the blood from his arms with the remaining dry space. His arms were still smeared with the foul-smelling blood so he stripped off his trousers, and as soon as he had, he saw no reason to keep his pants, socks, or shoes on either, as he was intent on getting his skin against John’s as soon as possible, so they all went as well. Once naked, he used the legs of his trousers to finish cleaning the rest of the blood

Soon, the pale skin of his arms were still smeared a faint pink and the scent was almost gone entirely, needing only the harsh scrub of a hot shower to completely remove the last traces. With its minimization, it also cleared his mind minutely, allowing him to remember the trauma he’d just put John through. He needed to press his skin to his omega’s as soon as possible, cover his mate with his scent and reassure him, reassure both of them, that they were both alive and well and safe. The bloodied clothes he draped over the faces of both corpses, blocking them from being able to look at his mate, even in death, before he rushed back over to his still-bound omega and dropped to a crouch between spread legs.

“John,” he whispered, reaching out with a hand that he couldn’t stop from shaking to press just the tips of his fingers, the barest pressure, against the skin of John’s cheekbone above the fabric of his scarf, easing the doctor’s face towards his. “John, I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry. I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry,” he continued, begging and desperate. “My John, you’re safe now and I’m so sorry. Will you look at me? Please?” His omega was facing him now but his eyes were blank and distant. Slowly, the older man blinked, bright blue eyes coming into focus and latching onto to Sherlock’s own grey ones who nearly sobbed in relief. “Are you all right? _Are you all right?_ ” he asked, reminding himself of a night almost as dangerous as this one at the side of a pool years before. The night when he had been able to wrap himself around his mate for the first and almost-the-last time. He could have screamed with the need to press John to him now, but the doctor was still bound to the chair and the detective had nothing on him, absolutely nothing, that could be used to remove the locks binding his omega.

“What do you care?” John’s voice was heart-chillingly dead, hollow from behind the scarf. “You. Don’t. Want. Me.” His head remained still but his his eyes slid somewhere off to the side, glazing over once more. “I...disgust...you...”

“ _ **No!**_ ” he growled angrily in objection. “ _No_ , John. You could _never_ disgust me. It was a show. It was all a show. I asked you to trust me no matter what I said or did, and you said you would, John.” He shifted a bit closer, enough so that he could press his hand flat against the skin damp from tears. “John, in all my life, I have never wanted an omega. I hated my biology and I did everything I could to pretend that such instincts didn’t exist, you know that. Until you John. It has _always_ been _just_ you. I marked you because I wanted you to be mine, and no one else’s.” He let himself drop from a crouch to his knees, his hand gentle and flat against John’s cheek. “While I was gone, you had to wake up every morning with the knowledge that I was dead. I had to go about each day with the fear that you would find someone worthy of revealing your true secondgender to, and that I would feel our bond break because another alpha took you as their own. It wasn’t a true mark and I knew that if you and the alpha were...distracted enough, my pheromones wouldn’t be noticed until it was too late. Do you know how many times I felt our bond waver? How many times I gave up a chase to stop and wait and hope that the bond would remain in tact?”

“You...gave up chases?” John asked, brow furrowing in confusion, eyes shifting just a little bit back towards Sherlock. “For me?”

“ _Yes_. You are _everything_ to me, John Watson,” he declared, feeling secure enough to press both hands to his omega’s cheeks, nudging the blue fabric of his scarf out of the way to get skin against skin. “I would do _anything_ for you. The only thing I won’t do, that I _can’t_ do, for you, is change myself.” As blue eyes swiveled to meet grey, the smell of John’s grief swelled again and it made Sherlock’s heart clench to breathe it and know that the cause was himself.

“But...you _left_ me, Sherlock,” the omega exclaimed, silent tears renewing. “You killed yourself right in front of me. I watched you die!” He was sobbing now, the hollow shell having cracked and let free the last two years of grief, and the alpha had never felt more at a loss.

“I know. And I’m sorry.” He rose into an awkward stance to press his forehead to John’s. “Please understand, John. Moriarty had set up snipers to kill you as well as Mrs Hudson and Lestrade, and if I did not kill myself, they would have killed you. They would have killed all three of you. I couldn’t let that happen.. I couldn’t let you, any of you, die.”

“But you could have taken me with you!” John shouted, the scent of anger surging and piercing the grief, right before he tried to headbutt Sherlock who ducked just in time, hands dropping to bare thighs to keep both his balance and contact with his omega’s skin.

“No!” he shouted back as he dropped back to his knees. “No, John, I couldn’t. Do you think that I did not think of _every_ possibility before I went through with what I did? You had to be the one to sell my death. The route I chose was the _only_ one that would allow us to have a future together.”

“A...future...” In spite of the situation, Sherlock was finding it a bit difficult to not express his frustration with a deep sigh. He knew John’s brain would not be functioning at full capacity but he had hoped it would be better than this.

“Yes, John. A future with me.” The alpha repeated. “I want to be able to solve cases and chase criminals with you. I want to be able to walk into 221b and the fuck you against the door.” John sucked in a breath, his cock jerking and hips swiveling as if searching for a way to relieve the ache that must be filling him anew. “I want to be able to sit in my chair and have you ride me until we’re knotted for hours. I want to cover every inch of your neck with my bondmarks until everyone can see you belong to me no matter which way you’re facing.” John’s eyes slid closed and he let out a low moan. “I want to cover you with my scent so thoroughly that even betas could scent that you belong to me when you’re wrapped in three jackets and a scarf. I want you to wake up every morning in my bed and in my arms. I want,” he paused to swallow thickly, the words almost stuck in his throat, the feralness receding from his mind with each word. “I want to watch you swelling with my children until you’re unable to leave my bed.” He slid his hands up John’s legs to his waist, thumbs making small circles on the skin of his stomach, not able to choose between watching the expressions on John’s face, the contrast between the paleness of his thumbs and the tan of his mate’s skin, or the way slick was dripping from John to the floor at an accelerating pace. “I want to get you pregnant as much as you will let me before you can’t have children anymore.” He leaned forward to press his face against John’s stomach , breathing deep and pulling the scent of his omega back into his lungs where it belonged. “I want to spend every day with you, making you as happy as I can. I want to grow old with you in a cottage in Sussex, raising bees while you write up our cases. I want to spend the rest of our lives together and I want us to die together because I don’t think I could live another day without you, John Watson.” John was sobbing now as Sherlock continued to nuzzle the skin before him.

“How--” another sob cut off the omega’s speech and he cleared his throat, turning his head to wipe his eyes on his biceps. “How long?” He wasn’t being explicit but Sherlock was fairly sure he knew what the older man was asking.

“Ever since I almost took a poison pill because I was bored with life and I sat on the back of an ambulance in a shock blanket and looked across a crime scene at a man who managed to surprise me more than once.” John was shaking his head and still crying but his lips parted to ask another question.

“No, not tha- Well, yeah, that too but I mean... How did you know I was an omega?” Sherlock smiled up at him.

“I didn’t, not then, at least.” John sucked in a breath and it held there like he had stopped breathing though his pulse still pounded in his neck and his eyes went wide. “I knew as soon as you walked into Bart’s that first day that you weren’t an alpha. You had no scent of your own and you smelled too strongly of an alpha wash, but I couldn’t deduce if you were beta or omega since you had traits of both. Your willingness to follow me and cater to my demands are traits of both secondgenders. Your medical background was more suited to known omega behaviours and career choices while your military background was more suited to known beta behaviours and career choices. Omegas very rarely masquerade as alphas, in fact, there have only been 7 recorded cases worldwide since 1953, and they had all been caught rather than revealing themselves, with the longest deception having only gone on for four years. It is far more common for betas to masquerade as alphas and for a greater amount of time.” The look on John’s face was the one he always got after Sherlock flooded him with data and deductions and the younger man could almost hear the echo of _’Fantastic’_ in John’s shaky exhale. “But by the time you shot Hope, I didn’t care. It didn’t matter to me whether you were an omega or a beta. It wouldn’t have mattered to me if you were an alpha. Your secondgender does not define you, but I would be lying if I were to say that I was not pleased to deduce that you are an omega.” Other than the one exhale, John had otherwise remained frozen, barely breathing, blue eyes painfully wide and disbelieving during his speech, but suddenly he blinked and blinked and blinked again.

“So... Omega...?”

“Ah, yes. Your attraction to me wasn’t difficult to deduce either. And it was that more than anything else that gave you away to me.” Sherlock slipped a hand down to the crease of John’s thigh where it joined his pelvis, pressing two fingers to his pulse and feeling it pound. “Whenever you were amazed and aroused by something I did, you [tilted](http://media.tumblr.com/ad7f5db512da3178c8032f379d9939ce/tumblr_inline_mw60ze1gJS1rfwhm5.gif) your head, and presented your scent gland to me, as you know, only omegas can do. You have no idea how difficult it was not to accept, especially as you did it so often, but the action I knew to be instinctual rather than intentional.” John’s head jerked like he had been about to present his scent gland. “Additionally, whenever either of our lives were in danger, I experienced instinctual desires on a physical level that research has told me are an alpha’s response to their omega emitting in-distress pheromones, like you are now. Still, I was not 100% certain until after the pool. I found that I finally could not control myself and I took you for my own the only way I knew that I could get away with.”

“But you _broke_ it. Why the hell did you break it, Sherlock?” John cried, a fresh set of tears falling and the detective’s heart clenching in response. “Do you know how much that hurt? How much it felt like my heart was literally being ripped from my chest? I feel like all my insides have been scooped out and all I am is a shell.”

“I know, John. I know. You forget the bond existed in me as well, and that I knew of its existence. I know what you are feeling because I am feeling it as well. I will grant that you will be feeling it to a greater extent than I due to me being the one who broke the bond.” John’s eyes flicked to the side as if shamed before returning to his with a narrow glare. He decided it would be best to quickly explain before he lost his chances of getting his mate back entirely. “As for why I broke it, I admit that a great portion of my reasoning was for the show itself. You are many, many things, John Watson, but an actor is not one of them. The rest of my reasoning stems from the extremely high probability that as soon as you are free from this,” he took a deep breath before plowing on, “that you will want nothing to do with me.”

John’s glare broke as his eyes widened again and it appeared he was once more shocked into silence. “What the hell gave you that idea?” he finally choked out, seeming almost horrified.

“I had thought it obvious,” Sherlock replied, cocking an eyebrow. “I faked my death for two years, bonded you without your knowledge or agreement, and I was the cause of your kidnap and rape. Even before all that, I know I do not treat you as you deserve to be treated. Arguments could be made by omega rights activists that I am abusive towards you in every way a partner can be considered abusive. Why would you want to stay with me?” To his great surprise, John burst into giggles, though they were higher pitched and faster paced than he had ever heard him emit before. So much so to the point that it was disconcerting. “John?”

“You--you thought--” The omega broke off into giggles once more and Sherlock shuffled closer, hands tightening on John’s waist as he stared up at his mate in puzzled concern. “You--you--you mad, idiotic, oblivious, just utterly _blind_ genius _twat_!” He could only blink owlishly in surprise up at John who was still giggling as if he had been told the funniest joke in the world. “I love you, you berk!” Now it was Sherlock’s turn to stare in shocked silence. “As soon as I shot that cabbie I knew there was never going to be anyone else for me but I don’t know if I can say for sure when exactly I fell for you. You are the only person, alpha, beta, or omega, that I have ever truly wanted. The only person I have ever wanted to go off my suppressants for. That was true two years ago and it’s certainly true now.” His heart was pounding absurdly fast in his chest and he felt short of breath. It was only in his wildest dreams that this would happen to him, that he would get everything that he had desired so strongly and for so long. “I’m not saying we don’t need to talk about what you did because we really do. You hurt me, Sherlock. More than anyone else ever has and, I think, more than you’ll ever know.” A whine he couldn’t stop rose in his throat at his omega’s words confirming what he already knew but hurt even worse when spoken aloud. At the pitiful sound, John’s eyes closed and his chin dropped a bit before his eyes opened again and his chin jerked back up. His stance, even bound to a chair the way he was and nearly in full heat, was solid and proud. “There is so much left that we need to talk about, including what has happened here, and I promise you that we have all the time in the world to do it, but we will do it _later_. Right now, my body is preparing to go into heat, and despite everything, I still want my first heat since I presented to be with you. You’ve been my alpha since day one, and I would like a proper bond with you, if my mate will still--” Sherlock didn’t give him time or breath to finish his sentence before he was on his feet, yanking his scarf away from John’s mouth and pressing his lips to the ones waiting below the blue fabric, licking his way into the soft mouth with soft strokes.

Admittedly, the taste was not as delectable as John’s semen or musk, but it was still delicious and perfect. It was the taste of his toothpaste and his favourite tea. It was soft and warm and wet and their tongues were tangling around one another, exploring every crevice of each other’s mouths, running over teeth, brushing against lips in such a way that it made a different kind of heat pool low in his belly besides the arousal John's pheromones were already causing. One or both of them moaned into the kiss and Sherlock could feel his alpha side rise quick and strong with the desire to mark and to mate.

“Oh god, Sherlock,” John moaned, breaking off and head falling back. Needing too much to get his tongue to John’s skin, he ignored the tempting mouth to adhere his own along a firm jaw and down a supple throat. His omega was writhing wildly in his restraints and panting like there wasn’t enough air in the world. “Please tell me you have some way to get me out of here so we can go home.” _Home._ The younger man sat back on his haunches, delighting in the whimper of disappointment that was let free at him doing so. Before he could answer though, the sound of sirens and the flashing of blue lights against the ceiling and floor finally registered as just having arrived and the alpha sprung to his feet, moving his coat to drape across his omega’s waist and covering the erection from sight. Only a few moments later came the sound of shouting and feet on the stairs in the far corner, the same stairs he had come up.

Rationally, he knew the only thing coming up those stairs was New Scotland Yard’s finest. But his alpha instincts, lurking right behind the lines of his conscious thought, already riled by the recent physical and sexual assault on his mate in addition to his mate’s proposition for a mating bond, instantly broke through and took over, an absolute invasion of his mind palace. He whipped around to face the oncoming threat and from behind him came the sound of chains clinking together, the sound of his omega struggling in his bonds, and in response, he fell into an aggressive, forward stance, growling warningly and blasting pheromones to ward off interested suitors. From the closer end of the room, the metal doors burst open and a flood of alphas and omegas in medical masks spilled through like ants from an anthill, fanning out and swarming forward, those in the frontline already shouting out threats and demands.

“New Scotland Yard! Alpha, step away from the omega immediately or we will be forced to tranquilize you!” The alpha only growled more firmly and bared his teeth. His omega had been taken from him twice before, the second time for over two years and he was not going to let it happen again. A bond would be established before he would let his omega out of his sight again.

“No, wait!” his omega cried from behind him. He lowered and quieted his growl for a moment, chiding his omega for bringing attention to himself as he backed up, pressing his back to his omega’s front, assuring him that he was safe and protected. “This is my alpha!”

“I’m sorry, omega, but the alpha needs to step away until we can verify his relationship to you and that you are not being coerced,” a different voice called out as the pack moved forward. Pieces broke off of the pack and swept to the sides, checking to make sure there was no one else present. As they got closer, they inevitably ran into his kills.

“Sir, we have two bodies, one alpha male, one omega male, both mutilated!” a third voice called out. At that, the onward rush intensified with continued demands for his removal from his omega’s general vicinity. He would not oblige.

“Goddamnit, he is not the problem!” his omega shouted. The pack was now in a circle around them, weapons raised, bodies tense, each of them throwing off aggression and protection and their own brand of pheromones until his head was swimming with the onslaught and the desire to kill them all before they could take what was his again. His omega’s chains rattled again and he turned slightly, edging just enough to put his omega’s face into view. At the sight of distress on his omega’s face, he whined low, questioning, and leaned his head forward to nuzzle the damp hairline. Before he could make contact, something whizzed past his ear and he whipped towards the source and snarled.

“Back up or next time, I won’t miss,” the third voice spoke up again.

“What the fuck is wrong with you! I said that is my alpha! And I’d thank you for not tranquilizing him at the start of my heat!” His omega was angry now. While he was displeased someone was making his omega angry, he liked seeing it, the way his cheeks flushed beautifully and how forceful he would get. “Not to mention that _he’s bloody feral!_ ”

A new voice scoffed, the sound full of derision. “Please refrain from going into hysterics.”

“Hysterics? _Hysterics?!_ Not only was I kidnapped and tortured by that omega over there, I was then raped by his alpha, also over there,” he snarled at the reminder of what had been forced on his mate, “my alpha turns up not dead after two years, he kills them to protect me as is his right while I get to watch from the sidelines because I’m stuck in his bloody uncomfortable chair, my heat is drug-induced and about to start at apparently exacerbated levels,, and all I want to do is get into my nest and bond with my mate. Now, I’ve remained pretty bleeding calm about all this and I think that if I want to go into hysterics, _I BLOODY WELL DESERVE IT!_ ” He was breathing heavy with the force of his speech, chest heaving attractively. “Now, if it will settle things, Sherlock, bite me so we can go home.” The surrounding circle surged forward around him, intent on preventing him from doing anything. They needn’t worry.

“No,” he said. The others froze and his omega blinked up at him in shock. He smiled at his beautiful mate and ducked down to brush their noses together. “Home first, then bite. Then bond,” he corrected. His omega blinked and then smiled before tilting up his own head to lick the line of his jaw.

“My clever alpha,” he was praised and his insides warmed.

“John? John is that you?” the second voice called out. Suddenly, his omega’s face fell and the smell of fear and shame swelled and he immediately went on the defensive, turning towards the voice. An alpha stepped forward, weapon in hand at his side, silver hair shimmering as he stepped into the sphere of light cast by the hanging lamp. Something about the alpha was familiar but he could no longer discern if it was positive or a negative recognition so he bared his teeth and snarled. “And Sherlock? Did you say Sherlock?” His omega stayed quiet but he was tense again in the way that made him unhappy. He bared his teeth at the one causing it. “You’re an _omega_?! Sherlock is _alive_?! You two are _mates_?! What the hell is going on here?!”

“Yes, it’s me, Greg. Yes, it’s Sherlock. Yes, I’m an omega. Yes, Sherlock is alive. No, technically we aren’t mated though I’m _really_ hoping to remedy that tonight. And more than I can or want to tell you right now.” His omega took a deep breath, the scent of fear and shame fading. “I’ll answer any questions you have, write up a report, whatever, but it’s going to have to wait until after my heat. Sherlock’s feral, and if you wait any longer to get me out of here, I might be too.” The alphas and betas around them began to lower their weapons, their pheromones lessening and their stances becoming less aggressive. He reached a hand behind himself, placing it firm on the center of his omega’s chest as he stared down the silver-haired alpha who just kept edging forward, scent projecting caring and protection.

Suddenly, his omega gasped and he realized too late that he had been so concerned about the alpha in front of him that he had forgotten about the others behind him, that there was a beta scent much closer than it should be. He whipped around to find a beta in a green uniform standing right behind his omega, another dressed like him standing right behind. But it was only the first beta that concerned him, and the way one hand was laid upon his omega’s shoulder and the other hand splayed over his thigh. He was leaning forward, mouth by his omega’s ear, speaking low and fast. The murderous rage from before rose in him sharp and fast and he shot forward, swiping and snapping at the new interloper. The beta shot backwards at his attack and his own progress forward was halted by his spot between his mate’s legs, a spot he would not abandon. He ignored the shouts around him and immediately put his own hands over where the beta’s scent had tainted his omega. He rubbed at the tan skin, smearing his scent back where it belonged and eradicating the intruder’s.

His omega whined quietly, head lifting to butt gently at his, a nose tracing his jawline. He rumbled softly, comfortingly, and licked his omega’s cheek before rubbing their noses together. It took him a moment to realize his omega was speaking to him.

“It’s okay, alpha. Shhh. It’s okay. I’m yours. It’s okay. My strong alpha, keeping me safe. Such a good, clever alpha.” He hummed at the praise, running his nose across the line of his omega’s hair, breathing in the scent that calmed him in turn. “I need to get out of his chair, right? And the only way to get out is for them to get me out. Which means you have to let at least one of them in close, okay?” He snarled but stepped closer, pressing their fronts together, their erections rubbing together in a way that made his omega yelp prettily and buck his hips. He settled both hands onto his omega’s hips and buried his nose in his omega’s soft hair, trying to ignore the several alphas and betas approaching his omega slowly from behind. “Just try to scent me as best as you can, yeah? The calmer you stay, the sooner we can go home.” The silver-haired alpha, seeming all-the-more familiar the longer he could smell him, moved around the back of his omega to where the two betas were already.

“Do you need a rape kit done, omega?” one of the betas asked. His grip on his omega’s hips tightened before he spoke, declining.

“No, thank you.”

“Okay John, all these bands are just padlocked. We just need to get the bolt clippers, and then you should be good to go.”

As conversation continued to flow around him, he let himself concentrate on just the different scents of his omega: the scent of his hair, of his sweat, of his musk, of just him. Slowly, he drifted down, tracing tan skin with his nose then lips then tongue. Once he was as satisfied as he could be, he continued downwards. His scarf was still wrapped around his omega’s neck and he was loathe to remove it but it was also covering the metal band keeping him from the tempting scent glands. He growled in annoyance at the restriction, and then a moment later, there was a sharp _CLACK_ and his omega’s arms were suddenly draped around his neck and over his shoulders, fingers curling into his hair. He growled again, but this time in approval, shifting even closer and thursting his hips gently into his omega’s, delighting in each pleasure whimper it drew forth.

The silver band around his mate’s neck was becoming more and more of an annoyance as it prevented him from accurately scenting, having to contend himself with the skin along John’s jaw and behind his ear and down along his collar bone and shoulder, as he simply nudged the scarf out of his way as he went along; he was loathe to remove the fabric at the moment, with how thickly his scent covered it in such a way that it would only help further his goal. With everything he could reach, he went over with first the tip of his nose, streaking the omega’s skin with his own scent as well as dragging the omega’s scent into his lungs. Then he went over the same lines with his tongue, delighting in the taste so enhanced from the last time he had put his tongue to John’s skin. He could hardly wait to put his nose and his tongue and his teeth to the scent gland behind the metal. It grated on his instincts that it was hidden from him, at the same time a comfort that it was hidden from the other alphas in the room.

“Any lock in particular you want gone next, John?” that other voice asked. The name was on the tip of his tongue but fading fast in the wake of his concentration. He shifted even closer against his mate and moved to the other half of his face, loosing a low warning growl against the tan skin to let the alpha know to keep his hands to himself before dragging the tip of his nose across the skin, an exact mirror to what he did a moment ago.

“Yeah. Neck first, please, then keep working your way down.” There was another loud _CLACK_ and suddenly the band around the thick neck was falling away and he loosened the scarf enough to bare the neck without removing the fabric entirely and greeted the newly revealed skin with a slow, wide pass of his tongue, right over the scent gland. Satisfied with the way the fingers in his hair tightened almost-painfully, he rewarded his beloved omega with a light nip right over the scent gland.

“ _Oh god, Sherlock._ ” He chuckled at the moan, a sound of pure alpha satisfaction, as every available inch of skin on the first side of his omega’s neck was passed over first with the tip of his nose, scenting his mate properly ( _finally_ ) as much as he was spreading his scent, and then followed by his tongue. Right over his scent gland, his skin smelled and tasted even sweeter now than it had in their sitting room two years ago, an effect of the unsuppressed heat and whatever it was that he had been dosed with, and he very happily occupied himself with familiarizing himself with the pure, undiluted taste and scent.

There were even more _CLACK_ s and with each one, another metal band fell away and he was able to wrap himself more and more tightly around his mate, needing to press him closer and closer the more the scent of his omega’s heat swelled. There was a swish and a light thump of fabric falling and he looked down to find his coat on the floor. He would have been content with leaving it where it was, far from done with scenting his mate, satisfied that his own body was preventing the other alphas and betas present from seeing his omega, had his mate himself not spoken up.

“Sherlock, I’m almost free. Pick that up and start putting it on me.” He blinked owlishly at his omega for a moment before crouching to pick up the thick fabric. The thick fabric that smelled like him. Yes. That would work very well for keeping his mate covered in his scent while they travelled to their nest. Coat in hand, he stood and smiled at his mate, pleased and feeling oddly relieved when he received a smile back. It was a work of only seconds to get arms in the sleeves and buttons done up the front of his torso, letting the tail bunch up behind his mate’s coccyx as the alpha worked on breaking the locks on John’s first leg, muttering under his breath and shaking his head as he went along.

One short, slightly-tanned leg swung off the plank with a relieved groan, stretching it and letting it fall to the floor as the other alpha moved around his mate’s back to the other leg. Two _CLACK_ s later and the other tan leg joined the first on the floor, his mate shoving at his chest to hop forward off the strange chair, fixing the coat around him to fall and cover his nakedness. His mate’s knees buckled under his weight, unused to being used after having been stuck in the same position for far too long.

Finally faced with an unbound mate, he wasted no time rushing forward and enveloping the omega in his arms, holding him as tightly as he could without hurting him and lifting him up to bring his head to his level, nuzzling at his hairline as he just whispered his mate’s name over and over and over ( _”John, John, John, my John”_ ). There was a sick pause where the omega was stiff and unmoving in his arms before his arms raised and wrapped him in a hug just as tight, a tongue laving at his neck in a way that sought comfort as much as it gave it. He ducked down to press his nose back to his omega’s scent gland, inhaling sharp and hard. A (not-so-subtle) coughing drew his attention back to the silver-haired alpha who had helped free his omega. The man was blushing and holding out an orange blanket.

“Here, Sherlock. Best cover up so you two can get on home.” He stared at the offering for a moment before the intended use sunk in and he loosened his arms enough to let his omega’s feet touch down again. The smile his omega directed to him had his heart, and his cock, throbbing. But a moment later, his omega turned in his arms and reached out to the other alpha. He snarled and tightened his arms, yanking his mate’s back tight into his chest and keeping him there.

“Shhhh... It’s all right,” his mate murmured, reaching up and back with his right arm to wrap ahand around the back of his neck. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m just going to grab the blanket from Greg so we can cover you and get home, all right?” Bright blue eyes stared up at him, calm and gentle, before closing as his omega’s chin tilted up and a pair of soft lips nuzzled lightly along his jaw. Slowly, he lowered his head to prop his chin on his omega’s shoulder and nodded, a single quick jerk, carefully watching the progress of an arm clad in fabric drenched with his scent raising towards the other alpha who, rightfully, did not move anything except his arm, extending the limb to pass his offering. As soon as it changed hands, the other alpha took a step back as the gaudy orange fabric was shaken out and his omega turned back to face him, cheeks bright red but smiling, as he wrapped the fabric around his waist while his alpha watched and preened at his mate’s attentions.

“One of Mycroft’s people is here, if you’re ready,” the alpha to the side informed them, and he looked up to find another familiar alpha approaching, her focus directed at the smartphone in her hands.

“Mr Holmes would like to extend his congratulations and his condolences that he can not be here to greet you,” she informed them tonelessly. “I have a car waiting, if you’re ready.” He lifted his head, scanning the room with all his senses to verify there was no more attacks awaiting in the shadows. The other alphas and betas had migrated to his kills while he had been occupied with refamiliarizing himself with his mate’s scent, and they were moving with familiar actions in familiar blue suits. The omega in his arms looked up at him, tilting his head and presenting his scent gland enticingly.

“Come on, Sherlock. Let’s go home.”


	7. With the Utmost Care

The ride home was absolutely excruciating in almost more ways than John could really care to count. When Anthea led them out of the warehouse, it was to the same car that she usually used to kidnap him. That or another that looked exactly like it. John wouldn’t be surprised by either. Sherlock’s arm had remained an iron band around his waist since he’d been released from his bindings, and it didn’t let up as the alpha opened the car door and nearly shoved him inside, a limpet to his back as they settled against the black leather with Sherlock plastered to his right side and curled as much around him as he could get without actually climbing in his lap. The coat against his leaking arse became uncomfortably damp almost immediately and he grimaced but remained still, knowing it would only get worse the closer he got to the true start of his heat and the more he shifted.

Anthea waited a moment before following inside, a medical mask now across her nose and mouth as she sat herself on the bench opposite them and as far away from John as the cabin would allow. If he didn’t know that being around an omega in heat could cause other omegas to enter a pseudo or real heat, depending on how close their own was, then he would be surprised that Mycroft wasn’t present. The fact that the British Government had sent an alpha in his stead, even if it was his closest and most trusted assistant, told John that there was a good chance that even the older Holmes was as unfamiliar with what a feral Sherlock would do as much as Sherlock himself was unfamiliar with what he would do. Which meant there was a very good chance that before John, Sherlock had never gone feral before. At this point, all he knew was that his alpha would and had killed to protect him, to keep him safe, and he had no problem with that.

Anthea for her part, remained entirely professional all the way back to Baker Street, eyes remaining on her smartphone and rear remaining on her seat. He would commend her for it later because every time there was bump in the road and she slid a little closer in their direction by no power of her own, or any time she breathed a little too deep, or if her eyes happened to flick up from her mobile, or god forbid her nostrils flared, then Sherlock would snarl at her and curl his arm tighter around John’s waist or further curl his lanky self around his smaller body. After several minutes of trying not to become annoyed at such behaviour and of reminding himself that his alpha’s feralness couldn’t be controlled at this point, that he would only be able to come out of it after an extended time back in their nest, possibly only after his heat was over considering how the feralness was triggered, John eventually succumbed to said annoyance and huffed in irritation before shoving his right arm behind his alpha’s back and his left around from the front, and dragged the alpha quite bodily into his own lap. His alpha blinked at him in (utterly adorable) surprise as hard thighs settled around his hips and bony knees dented the leather behind his waist before Sherlock grinned, more teeth than smile, eyes blown lust-wide as he rumbled approval. Most alphas would be put off, perhaps even disgusted, by an omega that could haul their own weight, that had no problem with manhandling their alphas, that had no qualms refusing demands or arguing back. Not his alpha though. Not Sherlock. His brilliant alpha only got off on it, loved having an omega that could match him in every way, a special gleam in his eye whenever John did anything so utterly un-omega-like. Apparently, that had been true before they knew that they loved each other, and it was certainly true now.

He knew of the perfect way to distract his alpha from the other alpha present, and how to help distract himself from his oncoming heat and the slick between his legs and the way he loved being surrounded by his alpha’s scent-soaked Belstaff but hated the way the fabric scratched and prickled against his skin but also worse of all how far they still were from home. In front of him lay an enticing expanse of pale skin overlaying hard muscle, more muscle than had been there before, and also covered with a frightening amount of scars that hadn’t been there before, some in groups, others scattered solitarily. He traced several with a soft, curious finger, frowning in confusion. Why did some of these seem familiar? With his heat making his mind slow and fuzzy, it wasn’t until his hands swept around to his alpha’s back that he realized the scars there were longer, more grouped, more uniform. He had felt cuts and scars before, in Afghanistan. When he had taken care of returned POWs. Torture. His alpha had been tortured.

He let out a high-pitched whine, looking up into Sherlock’s eyes as he clawed at his alpha’s back almost desperately with the pads of his fingers, trying to rip away the reminders of pain. The look of aroused surprised had gone sad and calm as his mate shushed him, large hands running through his hair and down his back, over and over. He whined again, a little quieter, unable to help himself, and a firm hand swept up his back to anchor itself at the back of his neck, gently easing him towards the alpha’s neck and his face towards his scent gland. He remembered well his alpha’s propensity for ignoring his transport, even with injuries, and so for a moment, he resisted, pushing back against the warm palm, needing to check for other injuries, needing to catalogue them all and check for any not-yet-healed or those healed incorrectly. Lips brushed his ear, a nose pressed against his hair.

“Shhh, safe, no hurt,” Sherlock murmured. “Scent.” John resisted for a moment longer before he stopped fighting and slumped forward, wrapping both arms around his mate as he pressed his nose and lips against the skin right over his alpha’s scent gland. The last time he had smelled this scent, the scent of his alpha and his alpha’s arousal this close to him, he’d been on suppressants, his sense of smell dulled, but the smell had been the most wonderful thing he’d ever smelled in his life. The memory of it had fueled more wanks than he could possibly count. Now that he had been forced off his suppressants, his sense of smell would double, perhaps triple. As his heat approached, it would slowly increase until it would double or triple again in addition to what being off his suppressants would give back to him. With his increased sense of smell and getting it straight from the source, Sherlock’s scent was nearly destructive in its potency. As soon as it hit him, he moaned low in his chest, unable to stop himself from applying lips and tongue to the sweat-damp skin. In under a minute, he was completely drunk on the scent and taste of his alpha, unable to stop his hips from rolling up into his alpha’s arse, whimpering at the harsh friction against such sensitive skin. There was a groan against his temple and then there were fingers unbuttoning the Belstaff and the shock blanket was being pushed up and a long, thick, wonderful cock was being thrust up against his stomach.

The vertical line of damp-tipped heat against his skin was a hot, hefty promise for the days ahead. He could feel precome smearing liberally across his belly, marking him with his alpha’s scent in long streaks. The emptiness in him made itself known again at the thought so aggressively that it hurt and he whined in desperation. A fresh wave of slick gushed from him, soaking the backs of his thighs in his arousal. The coat would most definitely need to be dry-cleaned before it could be worn in public again. That is, if Sherlock didn’t want to be accosted by any alpha on the street for smelling like an omega in heat.

“Five minutes out,” a female voice spoke up and he jumped, startled, looking around frantically for the source before he placed it at Anthea, who he had managed to completely forget about. He blinked wildly, trying to clear his mind and the feralness that had started to creep in. To his surprise, Sherlock’s only reaction to the other alpha speaking was to nod, apparently less threatened when pressed this close to his omega.

“Yes, nest close,” his alpha agreed. Slowly, the man ran a hand across the tip of his own penis, smearing precome on his palm, before placing his palm flat against John’s chest, over his heart, the precome a damp spot between them. Too overcome with instincts to do something so beta as ‘kissing’, Sherlock kept his palm firm against his sternum as he leaned in and _licked_ his way into his omega’s mouth, tongue dominating his and sweeping across gums and teeth. John was out of breath, left panting against the leather and trembling with arousal, by the time Sherlock finally leaned back, a look of intense satisfaction on his face as slow, confident fingers buttoned the Belstaff back up, covering him up from the world. His mate even went so far as to raise the collar to hide John’s neck before he fixed his own coverings, tucking his erection beneath the bright orange fabric as best as he was able. Once done, Sherlock wrapped both arms around John’s shoulders and then relaxed into his body in such a way that it was like he had just simply melted, every bit of his body contouring to every bit of his omega’s. At such a blatant show of his alpha’s trust of the environment, of his relaxation, he relaxed in turn, pulling his arms in front of him and against Sherlock’s chest to curl up in his alpha’s embrace. The rest of the ride was surprisingly calm as they remained curled up around each other, the only sounds in the cabin being those of their deep breaths, of the click of buttons of Anthea’s phone, and of the traffic outside.

Too soon, or rather, not soon enough, the car slowed to a stop and Anthea announced their arrival with a quiet “We’ve arrived.” Despite his rising heat, he was so comfortable under his alpha and in his embrace that any attempt at movement was like trying to move through molasses. As Sherlock shifted, moving backwards, he gave a slow roll of his hips, his erection rubbing against John’s through the fabric of their coverings. The friction was wonderful after several minutes of non-movement and he loosed a low, breathy moan, rolling his hips up in return. Sherlock smirked just as lazily as he’d rolled his hips and leaned forward to nuzzle at his hairline again, purring lightly.

“Come, mate. Nest,” he finally said, the lowness of his voice right by John’s ear causing a shiver down the omega’s spine. He nodded as the other man slid off of him and out the door Anthea had already opened the door and stepped out of, standing inobtrusively outside on the other side of the door. A hand reached back inside, and for a moment he was struck by the thin delicateness of that blood-smeared hand and the strength he knew it possessed. He shouldn’t be so aroused by Sherlock murdering people, but that was really it--it wasn’t that _Sherlock_ had murdered _people_ , but that _his alpha_ had killed the two men that had tortured and violated him, had protected him and avenged him. And _that_ , _that_ was an attractive thought.

“Mate?” Sherlock’s voice floated into the cabin, quiet and questioning, worried, and he realized he’d been sitting there for an unknown amount of time, lost in thought over a hand. Blushing, he reached out and placed his palm in his alpha’s, those long fingers curling around his and tugging lightly to pull him from the car.

“I’m sorry,” he said as Sherlock pulled him back into his chest, and he wrapped his arms around the slim, bare waist. “I was...thinking.” He smiled up at his mate and smiled warmly, letting his affection and lust shine through undisguised. He was pleased to feel the man still against his chest, eyes wide as if struck dumb by the sight of him. The omega in him preened at this silent confirmation of attraction and he stood on tiptoes to pass his tongue along the line of his alpha’s jaw. The man blinked at him for a moment before wrapping both arms tight around his waist and lifting him bodily into his chest, growling lightly.

“Nest,” he reminded the alpha breathlessly who nipped at the cloth over his neck before letting him back to his feet.

“Mr Holmes,” he heard from behind them and the alpha stopped, turning to face Anthea who had moved back around the door to slide inside. For once, her eyes were actually off of her mobile and she was staring directly at his alpha. He would be more offended if he didn’t know that her looking at him would only reignite his alpha’s possessive rage this close to their nest with his heat this close. “Your landlady has been settled elsewhere for the duration of your omega’s heat, your flat has been stocked with provisions, and congratulations on your mating. Welcome back.” With that said, she ducked back into the car and closed the door. Before it had even driven away from the kerb, Sherlock had bustled him up the front steps and opened the front door, pressing him eagerly inside. He lingered on the bottom step, unwilling to go any further without his alpha close by, watching as Sherlock flicked both the door lock and the deadbolt. Once again he was struck by the sight of the man, the broad shoulders, the slim waist, the scars, the wild curly hair, the bright grey eyes, irises barely visible around the blown-out pupils, and perhaps the most important for the moment, the large bulge tenting the front of the shock blanket wrapped around his waist, and was overcome with a bone-deep fondness.

“I missed you,” he whispered into the quiet air. Sherlock turned to face him, eyes scanning his face before moving down his body, taking him all in. Once his feet had been reached, those eyes moved right back up until meeting back with his before he stalked forward, like a predator after his prey, and in a move that utterly surprised him, pressed their lips together in a slow kiss that had him burning up from the inside. Pressing his hands against his alpha’s chest, he melted into it, whimpering quietly when his mate pulled back.

“Missed you,” Sherlock whispered back against his lips. “Clean first, then nest.” Firm hands turned him around and ushered him up the stairs and into 221b. That door was locked and deadbolted as well, and as soon as it was, the shock blanket was off and the Belstaff’s buttons were slid from their holes until they were both naked. Sherlock wasted no time in pressing him up against the door, hands sliding around his arse and yanking him up so that he had no choice but to wrap his legs around the pale waist. Soft lips traced along his scent gland, followed by a tongue and then teeth as the blunt head of a cock teased his hole. Within a matter of seconds, he was a whining, desperate mess as his heat began ramping up dramatically. It would be in full swing within the hour, but as it continued to approach in full, the more the scent of others on both his and his alpha’s skin grew more and more disconcerting and nauseating. He whined and pushed at his alpha’s shoulders, bile rising in his throat.

When he received a worried whine in return, he wrinkled his nose and whimpered “Smell. Clean.” He wasn’t sure if it was because of his alpha’s feralness that he was speaking so simply, or if he was going feral himself. Either way, a look of understanding came across Sherlock’s face and the hands around him tightened and he was pulled from the door, still wrapped around his alpha’s waist as he was carried bodily into the toilet and sat on the counter. He unwrapped his legs so the shower could be started and as soon as it started steaming lightly, he hopped down before his alpha could drag him in and a frowning Sherlock followed him in.

He closed his eyes as he stepped under the stream, enjoying the warm water pelting his skin, and instantly he felt just a little cleaner. Calming hands, smelling of Sherlock’s soap began scrubbing at his hair and he tilted his head back, nearly purring as firm fingers massaged his head. A moment later, the hands left his head to wash his body, leaving no spot uncleaned while paying special attention to his neck and the leaking hole between his cheeks, massaging the rim while stubbornly refusing to penetrate him before scrubbing away the slick on the backs of his thighs. As soon as his back side had been cleaned to his alpha’s satisfaction, he was turned around so that his front could be washed just as thoroughly, his cock getting the same special treatment his neck and hole had received. His hips jerked when a steady hand wrapped around his cock but the touch remained frustratingly medical. Despite, or perhaps because of, the lack of sensuality behind his mate’s cleansing of him, he had never felt so relaxed or so clean as he was maneuvered back under the spray, those lovely long fingers helping to rinse the soap from his hair and body. He received another slow kiss as firm arms wrapped around his waist to lift and turn him, swapping their places.

All his life, he had hid the fact that his secondgender was ‘omega’, but perhaps more than that, he had rarely, if ever, felt any classic omega desires to bow down to alphas or follow their commands or take care of them or anything of the like, with the sole exception being Sherlock, and even then, he had to restrain himself in fear of accidentally revealing something to the most observant man in the world. But as he opened his eyes out from under the spray, and he watched his alpha’s eyes watching him from underneath the sopping fringe and the way dark curls lengthened and straightened under the weight of water, and the way water ran in pinkened rivulets down the beautiful form in front of him, he realized he no longer had to hide any part of himself. His alpha knew what he was and what he’d been doing and what had been done to him and still wanted him, still wanted to take him as his mate. If he felt an omega desire, his alpha wouldn’t think him weak for partaking in whatever instinct was plaguing him. And right now, he wanted to take care of his alpha like his alpha had taken care of him.

Sherlock’s bottle of wash was right behind him and he wasted no time squeezing a liberal amount into his palm and smearing it between his hands before he reached up, his alpha helpfully bending at the knees, to smear it through the dark hair he’d always wanted to run his hands through but had never before had the opportunity. He could hardly wait to do it when it had dried but for now, he delighted in running thick locks through his fingers. As he moved his hands down the firm body, he made sure to pay as much attention to the pale skin as had been paid to his own, with the same kind of special attention being paid to neck and groin as had been done to his. When his hand, looking terribly small, wrapped around Sherlock’s cock, there was a low growl from above him and he looked up, smiling impishly at the hooded eyes as he leaned forward to place a light kiss right over the leaking slit. At the first taste of his alpha’s precome on his tongue, his eyes fluttered shut and he sunk to his knees, unable to stop himself from reaching out with his tongue to lick at the unending flow. And now that he started, he couldn’t stop.

Two years ago, in their small, temporary nest in their sitting room, he hadn’t been treated to the taste of his alpha’s semen. Now it was a vibrant taste like fireworks across his taste buds. The funny thing about musk and semen and pheromones wasn’t that it had necessarily a defined taste like tea or biscuits or sweets did. They tasted like the person’s personality and of the memories one had built between them and of their relationship together. So Sherlock didn’t taste of something in particular, but he tasted of 221B and cases and running after criminals in the middle of the night and giggling at crime scenes and Chinese at three in the morning and of ducking Lestrade’s reports. He tasted of home and protection and protected and fun and love. He tasted like _his_. He ran his hands down firm thighs and across bony hips and up a flat stomach as he suckled at the tip of Sherlock’s cock, his mate trembling beneath his hands with the effort of holding himself still, to keep from thrusting his enormous cock down his small mate’s throat.

John was suddenly overcome with another omega urge, but one that he had actually felt before, just not this strong: the desire to have his alpha come on him, rub his come into his skin like lotion, marking him as his alone and warning off all other alphas. He wrapped both hands around the thick cock, both thrilled and terrified that it would soon be pounding into him, knotting him to it for hours and days. The foreskin moved easily over the hardness beneath it, his grip firm as he stroked the erection firmly and quickly, speeding up his hands even as he slowly suckled the leaking tip, letting the precome slide down his throat. Sherlock was groaning now, control over his hips faltering as they began to thrust minisculely into his mouth. Long fingers fluttered at his shoulders before weaving into his hair. As they fluctuated against his skull, he could only love his alpha more for the way the grip remained light and unpainful. The erection in his mouth and below his hands hardened, the knot at the base of the cock swelling just a little but not a whole lot, which it wouldn’t until it was inside him, but it still heralded the approaching orgasm.

“ _Mate_ ,” Sherlock groaned from above him, every line of his body tightening and John sat back just enough, closing his eyes as come spattered across his face and dripping down to his neck and chest. Ask the him of the past and he would have called the act demeaning towards the omega, a humiliating experience. But this was something he had initiated himself, taken rather than asked for or been forced into--and it was wonderful. He sat back on his heels, humming in pleasure as his tongue snaked out to bring some of the semen on his face into his mouth. Large hands framed his face, thumbs rubbing ejaculate into his skin exactly as he’d wanted, sweeping across his forehead and his cheekbones and over his nose and his lips, sliding down to rub it into his neck, the firm touch massaging his alpha’s, his _mate’s_ , semen into the skin above his scent gland until he was thrusting his hips into the steaming air, whimpering at the lack of attention to his cock and his hole. There was a nip to his scent gland that made him lose all ability to use his legs before the water was being turned off and he was being hauled to his feet.

As he was dragged still-dripping from the toilet and into the bedroom, two things hit him: the first that only the smells of them and home existed in 221b, no signs of another alpha or omega or beta present even to his heightened sense; the second was that, as he was lifted up and thrown onto the mattress, his alpha standing at the foot of the bed watching him, was that his heat had finally hit in full. His skin was as hot as it had ever been, his hole as empty, his skin as hungry for another’s touch, nearly, if not all, logical thought gone from his mind.

His alpha was much too far away from where he had been tossed onto the line of pillows at the head of the bed, an infinitely and impossibly long expanse of mattress between them. In what felt like a Herculean effort, he sat up and dropped forward, shifting onto his hands and knees to crawl towards his alpha. As soon as he reached him, he reached up with one hand to grasp a broad shoulder, using his new leverage to pull himself up to clasp his other hand to the other shoulder. Both hands anchored, he pulled the rest of himself up, draping his arms around his alpha’s shoulders and melting into his firm chest. He whined imploringly, tilting his head to present his scent gland to his mate. Sherlock reached behind his own neck and grasped his hands, putting them to his sides before putting his hands on John’s shoulders. And then he shoved. John almost flew backwards, back onto the pillows. He couldn’t keep the hurt look from his face as he looked up into his alpha’s neutral expression.

“Alpha?” he whimpered, confused. His alpha said nothing. and his fear of rejection grew. His mate had already broken their bond once, would he even both to bestow a new one unto him? Would he break it again if he did? He rolled onto his stomach, pulling his knees under his ribs and sticking his leaking arse into the air, presenting himself for his alpha’s taking. “Mate?” Still, silence, and a sob rose in his throat and burst from his mouth in a strange, choked sound. His face felt strangely wet so he rolled his head to wipe the damp away and then he stretched out a as much as he could, exposing his scent gland, angling his hole to best entice his alpha. “Mate, please? I need you.” He rolled his his hips, reaching a hand back to slide two fingers into where he felt emptiest. It didn’t help. In fact, it made it worst. “So empty, alpha. Fill me. Want your knot. Want your mark.” His fingers were soaking wet as he thrust in an out but it refused to help, burning away all his insides until he was nothing but a shell. “Please alpha, I’m yours. Make me yours. Need you. Need my alpha. My mate.”

“Mine,” his alpha snarled from behind him, and the bed dipped right before two large hands palmed his cheeks and pulled them apart, an eager tongue taking him apart from the inside out. He could only cry and fist both hands in the sheets, holding on for dear life as he was tongue fucked into oblivion, his alpha’s hands keeping him frustratingly still and unable to thrust back in the beautiful piece of muscle penetrating him. But as wonderful as it felt, as much as it might get him to where he needed to be off his heat, on his heat what he needed to be hit was so much farther in than a tongue could reach, even an alpha’s tongue. His squirming grew more desperate, and he snarled angrily into the pillow, unable to push back and unable to pull away.

“Mount me, alpha!” he growled, yanking the pillow out from beneath his head and swung his arm around to hit him in the head. Judging from the tongue disappearing so quickly and the muffled _phwump_ , his aim was true and he smirked in triumph. The hands on his arse left and long fingers wrapped tight around his wrist, his makeshift weapon being pulled from his grasp but then something hit the back of his head. He looked over his shoulder in wide-eyed surprise to find his alpha sitting up on his knees, smirking back at him mischievously with the pillow still in one hand. The omega blinked for a moment before a smile slid across his own mouth and he rose up onto his knees, pressing his back to his alpha’s front and tilting his head to nuzzle at the pale jaw.

“My brilliant alpha,” he murmured, smiling. “‘m yours. Always yours. Mount me?” Warm hands wrapped around him, sweeping across his chest and down his stomach, cupping his groin and sliding back to tease his hole. He bucked backwards against the hard cock pressed against his arse, impatient for it to be inside him. Lips pressed lightly to his scent gland and he whimpered.

“Yes. My omega. My mate,” was murmured against his pulse. “Need to mark. Need to breed.” This time, when he was pressed to the mattress, it was gently, one hand wrapped around his hip, the other around the opposite shoulder as his shoulders were eased back down to press into the sheets, his arse angled to his alpha’s satisfaction. The lanky form he loved so much was draped across his back, the blunt head of a thick alpha cock nudging teasing his rim as a tongue contented itself with the skin of his neck over his scent gland, apparently his favourite spot though he could hardly blame his alpha for his obsession. If he were able to turn around, that’s where his tongue would be on his alpha too. Before he could complain again about the too-light pressure against where he needed his alpha the most, the pressure changed, becoming charged with intent.

Right now, he hated more than anything that another alpha had penetrated him with their cock before his own alpha had had the chance. He could only take comfort in the fact that, before two years ago, he himself had been the only one to penetrate himself and that two years ago, his alpha’s fingers were the first body part of any other person to be inside him. His alpha had claimed him first, and would do so again, this time properly.

Slowly, so slowly that he wanted to cy, that beautiful thick erection slowly began pressing inside him, and he couldn’t stop himself from tensing, suddenly expecting to feel the fire that felt like it was going to kill him when the other alpha had tried to take him. His alpha paused, nuzzling at his neck and stroking his side and he realized that, instead of burning, the presence of his alpha’s cock soothed him, filled that unfillable emptiness that had been plaguing him since he had woken. As soon as he relaxed, he received a light lick across his scent gland as the progress of his alpha’s cock resumed, pressing further inside him. While it did, a low moan slipped from his throat, long and drawn out as he was filled. The stretch was so new, a different kind of ache than he’d ever experienced, but _what_ it was, the fact that it was _his alpha_ stuffing him full of _his cock_ , made it the most delicious ache he’d ever experienced. He tried to roll his hips back, tried to get fuller faster, but the hands on his hip and his shoulder kept him still, forcing him to accept the slow glide his alpha was subjecting him to. He huffed in irritation and tried again only to receive a reproving nip at the back of his neck.

“No. Slow. Careful. No hurt,” he was told, the words soft against the curve of his ear, the timbre shooting shivers down his spine. “First time. First alpha. First heat. Careful.” The possessiveness in his alpha’s words made him shiver and moan again as he nodded his acquiescence, relaxing once more and allowing his alpha to do with him what he wished, trusting that he would keep him happy and safe and sated. The alpha hummed in approval as he continued to press in, redistributing himself across his omega’s back now that the smaller man had settled back down against the sheets and was oscillating between quiet moans and contented humming.

FInally, slim, hard thighs pressed up against his own, a large pair of bollocks tapping against his, and his alpha stilled, fully inside him. He felt like a piece of meat on a spit-roast, skin on fire and pierced, split in half, by a steel rod. He wanted to moan, to gasp, to make some noise of pleasure or confirmation that he was all right, that he was pleased, but he so full, more complete than he’d ever been in his life, and all he could do was lay there and try to catch his breath.

“So tight. So perfect,” he was complimented breathlessly against the back of his neck. “My perfect omega.” A breathless moan slipped free from his lungs, more air than sound as tried to wrap his mind around the fact that his alpha, the alpha he’d chosen and who’d chosen him, was finally inside him, was filling him with the part of himself that could be used to create children, beings made from the both of them. He shuddered.

“ _Breed me_ ,” he gasped, undulating his spine down and then back up into the chest above him. “Alpha, my alpha. Please, fill me, breed me.”

“ _Yessss_ ,” his alpha hissed, pulling out slowly and sliding back in just as slow. He keened and withered at the pace but was forced to stay still by firm hands. “Mine, my omega.” His alpha’s voice was getting lower pitched, more rumble than words and it drove hot spikes of arousal down his spine as his alpha continued his slow pace, slow pull out, slow glide in. “Mark you, breed you,” he was promised with another slow thrust. Something was building at the base of his spine, something inside of him being glanced upon but not hit right on like he needed with every thrust. “Such beautiful children we’ll make. Perfect children.” He could see them in his head, little children with night-dark sun-bright curls, with grey eyes and blue eyes, with quiet demeanors and untameable smiles. His alpha would give him as many as he wanted. “My perfect omega. Our perfect children. Mine.”

His alpha shifted and sparks lit up across his nerves and behind his eyes as something inside him was struck. Something wonderful that only his alpha could reach. And once he cried out in announcement that it had been struck, his alpha sped up, but only just a little. Just enough to still be careful but at the same time to keep hitting that same spot over and over and over until the sparks all bled into one another like the finale of a fireworks show. There was more pressure against his rim and, realizing it was his alpha’s knot thickening in preparation for an orgasm, he whined and attempted to shove back on to it, wanting it more than anything, only for those stupid restricting hands on his hip and shoulder to tighten and keep him in place.

“Alpha! Please! I want your knot! Please, knot me!” he cried out, rolling his hips as best as he could, feeling his own orgasm rising. He tried reaching a hand down between his legs only to feel his wrist get caught in an iron grip. Which meant that his hip was no longer being restricted. Grinning, he shoved his hips back, feeling the enlarged, but not fully-swelled, knot pop past his rim for a glorious second of fullness that even his alpha’s cock couldn’t quite complete with. He moaned with pleasure and success but was quickly punished by both hands grasping both wrists only to transfer them to one. There was a ripping sound and then he couldn’t move his hands anymore, stuck at the wrist, and those large hands were back to his hips, holding him still for his alpha’s slow but heavy pounding.

“Careful,” his alpha growled again. “Trust me.” There was a snap of teeth right next to his ear, a threat, a promise for punishment should he not trust in his alpha’s ability to care for him. With a whimper, he nodded and let himself go lax, twisting his hands to grab at the fabric holding them still.

“I trust you. I trust my alpha,” he assured him, and there was a pause, a stillness, and then his alpha rumbled his approval and began to pump into him again, each thrust perfectly hitting that spot deep inside him that could only be reached with an alpha cock. He whimpered and whined desperately with each powerful thrust, loving and hating the slow build of pleasure. If only his alpha would touch his cock... And suddenly, he did, long fingers wrapping firmly around him and stroking in time with his thrusts. He began to cry out in earnest, crying out and begging for his alpha, for everything his alpha could give him. With his rising orgasm came another omega urge, the urge to be bitten, to be bondbitten.

“Oh alpha, faster, please! So close!” As he cried out, he tilted his neck, exposing his scent gland, presenting himself to the one he would have as mate. “Alpha, alpha, alpha, alpha!” he cried out in both pleasure and in plea. His orgasm was right there, it was so close, his alpha’s cock in him and his hand around him both still slow and firm, but there was still something missing. Still something right there... He was teetering on the edge of a precipice, waiting for the tiniest gust of wind to knock him into the chasm of pleasure.

“Omega, my omega,” his alpha whispered into his ear as he shoved his knot fully into him, the fleshy bit of his cock ballooning outwards, tying them together and putting a near-painful consistent pressure against his prostate. Still not quite... “I will fill you up and keep you full,” he whispered, and then his alpha was coming, jets of come painting his insides like cool water after a hot day, and the omega arched his neck further, presenting, begging, and his alpha struck, teeth sinking deep into his scent gland low on his neck, marking him and finally tipping him into where he was so desperate to be, his own orgasm streaking through his body like lightning, his walls clamping down on his alpha’s knot and milking another rush of semen from him. He could barely feel the teeth in his neck release his flesh or fingers pulling fabric from his wrists as the aftershocks of his orgasm continued making his body tremble, every fluctuation of his walls around his alpha’s sensitive cock milking another orgasm and more semen from him.

His alpha was a heat blanket across his back as his orgasm faded, leaving him feeling both exhausted and comforted and glad that he was already on his elbows, his heat still keeping him warm and desperate for physical attention from his alpha but sated in the presence of a knot inside him. A large palm and long fingers slid across his stomach and paused low, exactly where his pregnancy would begin to show if they were were lucky enough. If they were lucky enough, they wouldn’t be blessed with just one child, but a litter. Like he was in a fog, he realized his alpha was tipping them on their sides, pulling the blankets over them as he curled up behind him, settling them in for the duration of the knot. More comforting than the blankets of fabric was the blanket of alpha across his back, one arm bracing his head and the other wrapping back around his waist, hand returning to his stomach, stroking almost contemplatively as the alpha shuddered and delivered another rush of semen into him.

Soft lips nuzzled at the sore spot on his neck where his alpha had marked him for all to see, a sign of possession, of belonging. He smiled against the pillows before turning his head, angling it nuzzle against the other’s jaw line, licking it lightly and renewing his pheromone-induced buzz.

“My strong alpha. My mate. My clever mate. You’ll give us all the children we could want,” he murmured, praising between nuzzles and licks. “So strong, so clever, so beautiful. Mine. All mine.” The hands around him tightened, holding him tight and he relished in the feeling.

“Yes, my omega. My beautiful mate. Yes, always yes. Always mine.” The lips at his neck moved up until they were nuzzling at his hairline at his temple, the strokes on his belly calming him further, lulling him into sleep. “Sleep. Rest. Stay healthy. More to come.” He nodded, snuggling further backwards into the warmth and protection his alpha provided, wishing he could turn over to nuzzle his face but knowing he had but to wait for the knot to loosen and slip free of him. As his alpha’s last command blurred his sight and fogged his mind, he gave a contented sigh and let himself fall into slumber, comforted by his alpha’s presence at his back and the safety he knew his mate would and could provide his family.


	8. Tying Up Loose Ends

When Sherlock’s feralness finally faded, and possibly after he’d had some sleep, though it was difficult to tell if he had, even for him at this point, it was to a night-dark bedroom, his mating bond back in place but so _so_ much stronger than ever before, and his knot deflating to allow his cock to slip free from the sleeping, warm omega curled back-to-front against his chest. His mate. His John. His arms tightened momentarily around the stocky waist as possessiveness rushed through him but then he breathed in, taking in the air saturated with their mating and relaxed, revelling in the perfect way their scents entwined and complimented one another. Even more comforting was the feeling of John’s contentedness, a warm presence along their bond that made his heart swell in happiness. During his absence, positive emotions from John had been rare and he couldn’t have been happier to finally feel them again. It made him want so badly to look upon his omega’s face but the moonlight was weak where it could breach the thin fabric of the curtains. His internal clock, normally quite accurate even after sleep, seemed to have suffered some sort of outage, no doubt caused by his feralness, but he could tell from the way his skin still itched and the still-present and driving need to get back inside his omega and stay there that it was still within the first 24 hours of John’s heat. When taken into consideration the hour at which he’d arrived at the warehouse and the current level of darkness, they would have been mating for over half a day, though he could remember nothing past the NSY’s arrival, and there was still more to come. Still another several days, if John would still have him.

The thought sobered him, throwing a cold wave onto his own contentment and he immediately extracted himself from John’s warm body and their bed, retreating to the sofa in the sitting room to assume his standard supine thinking position. When he had stood on the roof of Bart’s 26 months ago with 13 contingency plans in place and watched Moriarty shoot himself to prevent Sherlock from calling off the hits against John and the others, it hadn’t been the worst thing he’d been expecting, but it hadn’t been the best either. Despite his self-preparation for the event, the realization that it would be several years before he could see his omega again, if he didn’t die on the upcoming mission, had put him into mild shock, enough so that during his call to John, the tears on his face and the emotion in his voice had been real, and he hadn’t been able to control either. The entire conversation had been conducted on auto-pilot while he tried to come to terms with the loneliness that would be the next several years of his life; if he could get it over before he left, it wouldn’t bother him later when it could get him killed in the middle of a mission. And then he had jumped.

The bond had shuddered when his feet had left the roof, terror shrieking down the connection. It had nearly shattered from despair when trembling, calloused fingers had reached for a pulse and had found nothing thanks to the ball under his arm. Every one of his instincts, and even the parts of him unrelated to biology, screamed at him to reach out to his omega, to his best friend, comfort him, let him know that he was fine, that it was all fine, but he couldn’t. It would have ruined everything, would have gotten the most important person in his life killed. The Work was the only thing keeping him alive, and as John was part of the work, then if John was no longer in the world, there was no reason for him to be either.

So, for 26 months, he had travelled the world alone, finding and burning away each strand of Moriarty’s web, feeling the loss of his mate’s presence with every step and every deduction. After only a mere 29 days apart, his mind had (helpfully?) begun to conjure auditory and visual hallucination of his mate, this simulacrum of John doing its best to be the Conductor of Light its real counterpart was for him. It had made him miss his mate even more with a bone-deep ache. After 174 days however, even with his hallucination of his mate, he could no longer concentrate on anything but their separation. At every turn, he had to stop himself from fleeing back to London and his omega, and on more than one occasion, one of Mycroft’s minions had had subdue him or render him unconscious to prevent feralness from taking over and taking him back to his mate. He had no choice but to go back to the cocaine. No one in his life had ever made him care about his usage: not his mother or father, not Mycroft, not Lestrade, not Mrs Hudson. John though, John managed even before Sherlock had bonded him. The disappointed look on John’s face, like he’d realized his hero was merely human, was always hard to bear. The thought of that disappointment every time he injected his 7% was another jab to his sore heart but it was the only way he could function. The cocaine cleared his mind but it couldn’t clear or lighten his heart.

The assassins were who he had searched for and killed first, Mrs Hudson's had been the easiest, then Lestrade's, but it was John’s, the most important one, who had eluded him. It did not escape his attention that of all the parts of Moriarty’s organization, his second-in-command remained just as hidden as John’s assassin. The longer he searched, the more of the organization that fell to his efforts, the more he became sure that Moriarty was still alive, was still playing games with him. He would remember John’s theory that the one who’d shot him by the pool was likely Moriarty’s alpha and then contemplate how much sense it would make for Moriarty to work his alpha into that kind of position, someone close to him that he could trust explicitly and over whom he had complete control.

With John’s well-being always on his mind, he always kept as much of his mind as he could spare on the status of their bond as he could, always terrified that the bond would break from John’s end, that he would find another mate. Mycroft helped when he could, sent him photos though their despondent nature was hardly boisterous to his own conscious. But finally, the last strand was burned away, and Moriarty’s second-in-command was all that was left. And that’s when Mycroft had given him, in person in Serbia no less, the CCTV still of John being kidnapped an hour before. He was on a plane less than an hour later when he had been forwarded an image of the warehouse John had been taken to and its address, and another image of a strange chair being delivered to the warehouse the week prior. Though the design of the chair did not match any sex prop in his mental inventory, the intention of it had been clear and it had taken every bit of his willpower to keep his rage contained and clear from his expression and body language. Every moment since then, his mind had been a whirlwind of plan after plan on how to get his omega back safe and unharmed, and how to simultaneously end the lives of those who had taken John.

Once he arrived, it had taken everything in him to keep from going feral at the sight of John strung up and the scent of another on him, his omega’s screams echoing in his ears and the scent of distress nearly overriding every other scent. His conscious memories included the trauma he’d forced on John, both in breaking the bond and in allowing Moran to approach him that final time, and the memory of both of those drove a sick spike of pain into his heart. But he could also remember the way he’d been unable to help himself from murdering both Moriarty Moran in such an inelegant, violent way, but _oh_ the _satisfaction_ he’d gained from such an act had satiated most of his possessive rage and even now made a shiver of delight slide down his spine. He remembered his confession to John and John’s confession to him (which was now permanently inscribed word-for-word on the very door to John’s wing in his mind palace), and then NSY had cocked it all up, as usual. Their aggressive approach had snapped the meager restraints he'd redone his control up in after exacting his revenge, and the time frame between their arrival and his regaining consciousness an hour ago was a complete bla--

Sherlock’s eyes snapped open at the feel of despair along the bond and of the fresh scent of terror from his omega and he was instantly on his feet, scenting the air for any change in 221B’s usual smells and ears on alert for any unusual sound; every line in his body was tense in preparation of defending his mate from danger. But there was nothing. No changes to his ears, eyes, or nose. Nothing but sound of a singular muffled thump from their room followed by the sound of skin thrashing within the confines of fabric.

“John?!” he called out, moving towards the closed door. There was a second of silence from the other side and then--

“Sherlock?!” The door was ripped open and there was John, wide-eyed and pale and shining with a thin sheen of sweat, slick dripping down his thighs, and the alpha was hit by the smell of heat all over again, his cock responding instantly. Instincts warred within him, the desire to breed his omega just as strong as the desire to comfort his omega. Before he could speak or even move again, his mate was rushing forward and shoving him backwards into his arm chair before straddling his thighs and wrapping strong arms tight around his shoulders and gripping his hips with strong knees. Trembling lips pressed against his scent gland and he wrapped his own arms just as tightly around his mate’s waist, sliding one hand up to brace between shaking shoulder blades, worrying in the way John trembled against him. He scented lightly at his mate’s hairline, trying to find the source of his distress but only able to smell them and the scent of distress. Considering John’s previous state of consciousness, the only reasonable source was a nightmare.

“What did you dream about, John?” he asked, voice pitched at a comforting low and said right against the sensitive shell of an ear. The omega took a shuddering breath against his neck and tightened his arms but stayed silent for little longer.

"No one can take you from me again if we're connected," John muttered against his neck. He frowned, unsure of the man's meaning, but before he could ask, John was rising and he instantly reapplied his hands to the tanned waist, intent on keeping him from going anywh--

" _Joooohhhhnnnnn_ ," he moaned in surprise as the tip of his cock was encased in the slick, devastating heat of his mate. Physically, he had already experienced this sensation, but his mind did not remember it. It was extraordinary, one of the best physical sensations he’d ever had in his life, better than cocaine, warm and wet and smooth and so _hot_. And yet, only his glans was inside his omega. John was holding still in a kneel over him, forehead pressed to his and warm breath fanning across his face as he kept just the tip of his alpha's cock where it was needed most, thighs trembling with the effort it took to remain there. Sherlock’s hands were even tighter around that stocky waist now, fingers trembling with the effort it took to not just _force_ his omega the rest of the way onto his cock. “John?” he gasped after a long, excruciating minute of non-movement.

“I just want to remember our first heat together,” was whispered into the skin of his forehead. The skin below John’s lips wrinkled at the phrasing.

“You don’t remember before either?” He almost whimpered with the desire to fill his mate, knot him, breed him. So close and yet it still felt so far away.

“The last thing I remember is our shower. You--” John broke off and he looked up to find just enough moonlight on the side of John’s face to show him a light brush across his mate’s cheeks. Suspicion of a pleasant kind rose in his mind, even more so because the hours of mating had eradicated all traces of what could have happened.

“What did we do in the shower, John?” he asked, hips rotating in as small a circle as he could. John’s blush darkened a bit and Sherlock’s lips quirked. “What did _I_ do to _you_ in the shower?” he amended. At that though, the blush exploded, darkening his face in such a lovely way and Sherlock felt his mouth go dry. “What did you _let_ me do to you in the shower?” he whispered. John was silent for a moment, eyes wide before he leaned in to press his lips to the shell of his alpha’s ear.

“I wanked you until you came on my face,” he confided. Sherlock’s eyes widened, letting out a breathy moan as his cock throbbed painfully, and seemingly so intensely that John moaned in response, sliding down his cock just a little bit more. He had gotten used to the feel and heat from the forced stillness but the way it moved so smoothly over his cock, encasing just a little more of him in that heat, made him moan again.

“Please let me do that again, John. Please, I want to see, I want to remember,” he begged, arms tightening around his omega’s waist. John was nodding along the side of his head, emphatically.

“Yeah, okay, sure,” he was whispering, voice breathy against his ear.

“John, I need you,” he couldn’t stop himself from whispering back, hips flexing up to emphasise exactly how he needed him. He slid in just a tiny bit before John started rising and his arms tightened reflexively. “Please!”

“Shhh, shhh, I’ve got you. I’ve got you, alpha,” his omega comforted against his ear until his hips settled and then John was sinking down onto him, not stopping, and his fingers were tightening around John’s waist, until the omega in his lap was settled completely onto his cock. Such heat, covering all of him, being inside his omega for the first time in his memory, he almost couldn’t handle it. His head fell backwards, rolling along the the back of his chair as he tried to get himself back under control. He couldn’t lose himself now, not when they were coupling for the first time for either of their memories.

“Sherlock?” His mate’s worried call brought him back and he tipped his head forward just to press his lips against his scent gland.

“John, my John, you feel...so tight...so hot. I can’t... John, you feel so good. I never imagined... I can’t...” John was nodding against the side of his head.

“I know. I know Sherlock. You feel so good in me. I feel so full, so full of you. You reach so far into me. It’s just... I can’t... _Oh my god, Sherlock_.”

“Please, John, please move. It’ll be so much better when you move.” It was taking every bit of his self-control to not begin thrusting up, to begin fucking into that tight heat.

“I believe... I believe you mentioned sitting in this very chair with me riding you until we’re knotted?” John panted against his temple. Sherlock’s cock gave another throb of arousal that had them both moaning.

“For _hours_ ,” Sherlock whispered, giving in just a little bit for an miniscule thrust of his hips. A shiver ran down John’s spine. “Now, _please_ , John, please fuck me.” John gave a breathless moan that ruffled his hair (John had always had a weakness to his ‘please’s and the rare times he cursed) and then he nodded. The knees at his hips shifted, spreading and balancing on the seat cushion and then John was rising up, that heat withdrawing from his cock causing his fingers to flex automatically on John’s hips and even John let out a whimper. And then John dropped down and the feeling of his cock sliding into his mate like that was just as good--better?-- than the slow glide had been. The he did it again, and again, and again, and John Watson was _finally_ fucking himself on Sherlock Holmes’s cock.

It had been just over three years in the making, this coupling. The wait, perhaps, made it even more delicious than if he hadn’t been such a fool in the beginning ( _“I’m married to my work”_ ). John’s pace was slow but steady, and Sherlock couldn’t stop himself from looking down, watching the way his cock disappeared into John and reemerged shining with slick.

“After my knot has gone down, I’m going to take you to the shower so I can come on your face again,” John slowed, eyes wide and jaw slack. “Then, I’m going to tie your hands to the headboard and fuck your hole with my tongue until you’re crying and begging for my knot and I’ll make you come without my cock and without my hands. After, while you’re sobbing from being so unfulfilled, I’ll fuck you until you can’t speak and you’re sobbing in pleasure.” He needed to see John better, the angle at which they were sitting insufficient for the light from the window to hit properly, so he took a chance at John’s stillness to roughly turn the chair they were sitting in so that John’s form was bathed in moonlight. “I’ll take you every way over every piece of furniture in the flat, on the kitchen worktop, the table, your chair, your bed, the stairs. I won’t let you remain unfucked in a single place in our flat. I’m going to fill you with my seed until you’re bursting, make sure you’re pregnant before your heat is over.” John let out a choked sound and Sherlock grinned wickedly, thrusting up once, hard, bouncing John in his lap and loving the way his mate’s walls stroked his cock. He looked up to take in the omega’s expression when something on his mate’s neck caught his attention in the moonlight and he frowned, reaching up to wrap a hand around John’s neck. To his surprise, John moaned and shuddered at the contact, eyes fluttering shut and Sherlock dragged his mate’s head down to examine his neck.

He felt sick.

Along the long line of John’s scent gland there was not one but _three_ bondbites. He tilted John’s head to the other side, trying to ignore the rising nausea when he found three more on the other scent gland. There was a scent gland on both sides of every omega’s neck and most alphas were content with marking just one but the more possessive tended to lay two bondbites, one on each gland. Sherlock had lain _six_. Six bondbites on a man well known for loving his independence and hating being mollycoddled. This was... this was too much. What would John do? The number of bites spoke of high levels of possessiveness and now that John was truly his mate, and would be pregnant by the end of his heat if he wasn’t already, then that possessiveness over his pregnant mate would only increase. He would alienate his omega. He could lose his omega, his omega _and_ their children, because he couldn’t control himself. Six bondbites could, _would_ , only be the start.

“Sherlock, what’s wrong?” He hadn’t even realized John had grown still and tense in his lap as his mind had spiralled down. The doctor had given him this chance, consented while still in that chair but how many passes would he give? “Sherlock?” His omega’s tone was worried and, stone-faced, he lifted his omega off his cock, suppressing a whine though the other man had no reservation, and then proceeded to force John into the toilet, facing him towards the mirror, turning on the light, and waited.

The doctor’s eyes were wide as he took his neck and Sherlock did the same from behind him. The marks were even clearer under direct light, the skin bruised around each wide-mouthed mark, the colouration a deep blue-and-purple. They were clean of blood and deep enough that they wouldn’t need refreshing for weeks, months. Alphas who cared about their omegas weren’t supposed to bite that hard. John leaned forward, tilting his head this way and that to take in the marks, fingers tracing the edges of the punctured skin.

“Six...” he murmured. “You marked me six times.” Sherlock’s eyes were drawn to the back of John’s neck and he lifted trembling fingers to trace another bondbite across the back of the tan neck. A shiver rolled down John's spine and his knees buckled, hands white-knuckling the sink edge at the touch. He hardly noticed. Only those who viewed their omegas as nothing more than possessions bit there, the ones that treated their omegas like slaves.

“Seven,” he corrected in a whisper. The bile was rising now, fast and acidic in his throat. Marks like these, in this day and age, and on someone like John, went beyond ‘rude’ or ‘disrespectful’. They were demeaning. John would hate them, hate him. His eyes prickled with the rare feeling of on-coming tears.

“Seven,” John murmured, voice quiet and breathless. Sherlock turned his head away, unable to look any longer. He loved seeing them, loved knowing that other people could see his claim on his omega, see that John belonged so thoroughly with-- _to_ \-- _him_ and him alone, but he hated what they meant to others, what they meant to John. “Sherlock, what’s wrong?”

“Seven times,” he responded, unable to meet John’s eyes in the mirror, or really, unable to look at him at all. “I marked you seven times. Even I know it’s more than ‘a bit not good’.” He turned his head to look at the door to his room, the room where it happened. John had consented to the mating, but he hadn’t consented to this barbarity; he had violated his mate (again) and he couldn’t stand it, couldn’t stand himself. John was warned away from him so many times. Had he listened, Sherlock would be worse off than he was right now, back in an addict’s house, strung out on cocaine, or possibly dead, but John, John would be so much better off. John would be happy and still masquerading as a beta. He wouldn’t have been raped or tortured or revealed or bonded without his permission.

“Sherlock, NO!” John cried gripping his wrists tight. He blinked at his mate and found that he had been gripping his hair tightly, enough so that his skull ached where he had been pulling. “Don’t think like that, please.” He blinked again and realised he had been voicing all his insecurities aloud. “Yes, I was raped--” he broke off, throat working furiously as his jaw clenched before he blinked it away for later “--and tortured, but beyond that, you are still the best thing that has ever happened to me. Better than being a doctor, better than the war. You are perfect for me Sherlock, and honestly, if Mike hadn’t introduced us, I don’t know how much longer I could have stood my life. I had already contemplated eating my gun. So don’t _ever_ think that you were bad for me because you aren’t. You said ‘danger’ and I came running, remember?” John’s eyes were so blue and so earnest, worry thick along their bond and mixed liberally with reassurance. “Yes, seven bondbites is a bit much but I don’t care. It was you who gave them to me, and because it was you, I love them. I promise.” John had always been a terrible liar but he wasn’t lying now, honest eyes wide and pleading; Sherlock gave a choked sob and collapsed against his omega, wrapping the man tightly in his arms.

“Shhhh, shhh,” John was whispering against his ear, trying to comfort him with smooth strokes along his back. He wasn’t crying, wasn’t shuddering, but he knew the relief he felt inside would be reverberating through the bond. He clutched tighter, pressing his nose and lips to the marks along John’s neck, inhaling the scent of his mate and allowing himself to enjoy John's shiver of arousal. It would appear as if each bondbite was an erotic zone in itself and he was going to have so much fun with them.

“I just want you to promise me two things, okay?” Sherlock nodded but stayed silent and wrapped around his beloved doctor. “First, promise me you’ll always mean it?” Startled, he drew back, meeting the expressionless eyes of the most important person in his world, but he immediately knew exactly why his omega had asked. After all, John was always there to see how he treated those around him.

“You are _everything_ to me, John. I will never get bored with you. When our children arrive--” his omega’s pupils dilated as he sucked in a breath and the alpha couldn’t contain his satisfied grin “--I will never get tired of them either. I can know nearly everything about a person in one look, but you, I could, and will, spend the rest of our lives being surprised by the things you say and do. I can swear that to you.” John stared at him for just a little longer, blue eyes steady but searching on his own before he nodded.

“And number two?” Sherlock prompted. John’s smile grew wicked.

“Keep stuffing me with your cock until my heat is over.” Now it was the alpha’s turn for his pupils to blow wide in the mirror and to lose his breath. Despite their discussion and the emotions they’d just gone through, the pheromones had kept both of them rock hard and now he grasped his omega about the waist and hoisted him up, bracing his arse along the sink until the man could get the idea and wrap his stocky legs around his alpha’s waist, and as soon as they were, he lowered his mate back onto his cock. “Back... back to your chair?” John panted. Sherlock didn’t deign the question with the answer, just wrapped his arms tight and walked back to said piece of furniture. He sat down gently but John still moaned against his neck and he could only smile in response. He settled back, and then, with a wicked smile, leaned back into the chair and laid his arms along the chair arms, spreading his legs and forcing John’s knees further into the chair.

“Ride me, John. I want to watch you ride me until you come,” John’s eyes went wide in the moonlight and then he too smiled and moved his hands to Sherlock’s shoulders before rising up as far as his position could allow and dropping back down. The slide was just as delicious as every time before and Sherlock could only hope that this was one more thing he would never tire of because he didn’t want to. He couldn’t decide between looking at his omega’s face and the way his cock was sliding free and disappearing into his omega’s hole again and again. At last he decided on his face once John made an expression he’d never made before, eyes wide and mouth in an ‘o’ of pleasure. How many other expressions could John make that he’d never seen before? He had to find out.

John’s head was tipped back now, eyes closed as he fucked himself on his alpha’s cock. Sherlock took the opportunity to lean forward and flick the tip of his tongue across the tip of a pebbled nip. He let out a hum of satisfaction when his omega cried out and his pace faltered.

“Oh god, please do that again!” John cried and so the consulting detective complied, slinging a loose arm around a stocky waist to prevent the man from falling off his lap and using his other hand to occupy the nipple his mouth couldn’t. He sucked the small bud into his mouth, nibbling at it and then soothing the minor sting with a slow lathe while his fingers plucked and circled. Within minutes, John was a sobbing mess and Sherlock’s knot was swelling, his cock unable to fully press inside as his knot bumped repeatedly against John's rim, when he swapped nipples.

“Come on, John, you’re so close. I can feel it in the way you’re fluttering around me. You can’t begin to understand how tight and wonderful you feel around me.” He could tell his mate was overcome with arousal so strong he could barely breathe in the way he was gasping for air, fingers bruisingly-tight on his shoulders. His eyes fell on his bondbites and he was hit with a sudden desire so strong that it left him gasping and jerking back off John’s chest into his chair. “When you come, John, I want you to bite me.” He was sure John would have stopped if he had been less far gone than he was now but the omega only nodded, begging words falling from his mouth like little gems. Anxious for this to work perfectly, Sherlock now planted his feet firmly on the floor and his hands firmly at his mate’s waist and began thrusting near-violently into him until his mate was forced to slump against his chest with their noses against each other’s scent glands. He had to be careful not to thrust too far in for his knot was nearly completely swollen now and to thrust that in only to pull it back out would just harm his mate and he couldn’t do that anymore.

“Oh god, Sherlock, I’m so close. I’m so so close. Knot me, please, I need you to knot me. Alpha, my alpha, breed me, breed me, breed me!” It shouldn’t have been so arousing, those words, that tone, John’s face. It was. It all was. His knot was ready, John was ready, everything was ready, it was all perfect.

“Bite me, John. Bite now!” he cried, shoving his knot into that tight hole. John cried out, biting down hard into his neck as jets of come hit their stomachs, the minor sting of teeth only highlighting his own orgasm and Sherlock bit down along the lines of the oldest bondbite (evident in the age of the bruise). The smooth, silken heat encased him so wonderfully and his knot ballooned, pressing into John's prostate until his mate was sobbing from overstimulation as Sherlock's cock pumped out load after load of his seed, filling his omega. He slid a hand up into John’s hair, keeping him from pulling his teeth out too early, his cock still throbbing, ejaculating with every pulse though his omega’s cock was now laying a bit deflated against his pelvis, twitching periodically. As the first round of his orgasm stilled, he pulled his hand from John’s hair and leaned back into the chair, wrapping his arms back around his omega’s waist.

John’s teeth were still embedded in his skin and, while he didn’t mind it in the least (relished, in fact, the lingering pain and blooming soreness proving his omega’s love for him), the normally-active’s man stillness was becoming worrying. He palmed both tan shoulder blades and then stroked down and back up again, over and over in as soothing a gesture as he could.

“John? Are you all right?” he murmured into the marked skin. Another orgasm rolled down his spine and he groaned, hugging John tight as the omega’s passage gripped his throbbing cock, milking it of his everything he had to offer. “ _John..._ ” At last John’s teeth pulled from his neck and a third orgasm rolled through, too soon, on the heels of the second at the feeling, and he groaned again, nipping at the skin along the scent gland as he ejaculated for the third time. “I can’t wait for the change in your scent that will tell us you're pregnant. I am...excited for it,” he admitted in a whisper. Finally, finally John moaned, gyrating his hips and helping the third ogasm to completion.

“Oh god, me either, Sherlock. You’ve filled me so full, you’ll give me a proper litter, won’t you?”

“As many as you’ll give me." He ran his hands down his omega's sides, fingertips lingering in every hill and valley. "Are you comfortable? I believe we’ll be here for some time though I’ve yet to have the opportunity to experiment on the duration of my knot and what factors may impact it’s duration or frequency of orgasm.” John was quiet for another moment and then he started to giggle and, as always, when John began to giggle, Sherlock began to giggle too.

“Yes, Sherlock, I am quite comfortable.” As his giggles died down, Sherlock realized those blue eyes were fixed on his bondbite. “You let me bite you...” John’s tone was delightfully wondrous, as if he could hardly believe it had happened regardless of the proof before his eyes.

“Of course I let you bite me. I have belonged to you as long as you have belonged to me. I would even encourage another one to match the next time we mate.” There was a blush staining John’s cheeks that he found incredibly endearing.

“What, do you want me to somehow bite the back of your neck, too?” Sherlock stilled a moment as his mind went into overdrive, attempting to determine the logistics of their positions. Within seconds, it spat out an answer quite favourable to his proposal.

“ _Yessss...._ ” he hissed, more breath than word. John’s cock hardened against his stomach as his knot finally deflated. John was looking at him with that same look of surprised arousal that he occasionally let slip after an especially impressive deduction

“Shower?” John asked, just as breathlessly. He could practically hear his earlier promise playing in his mate’s head: _”After my knot has gone down, I’m going to take you to the shower so I can come on your face again.”_

“Don’t be an idiot,” he returned, trying to contain the happiness that threatened to fill him and implode. John blinked...and then his face slowly split into a wide grin.

**.oOo.**

John hadn’t been out in public as an omega in, god, what, 24 years now? He knew strangers in the street wouldn’t know the difference, wouldn’t know that the mated omega walking through their midst with his alpha at his side had been parading as an alpha for over two decades, but still it was a new feeling that he wasn’t sure how to cope with in any other way than firmly ignoring everyone around him with his back straight and his chin high. But these strangers weren’t as worrying to him as those that he knew down at New Scotland Yard. Which they were walking towards now.

After their boisterous round of chair-sex, with Sherlock's brief interlude of unwarranted guilt and emotional anguish in the bathroom, they had proceeded back to the shower for a repeat of their first shower, followed by Sherlock keeping his promise of tongue-fucking him into oblivion before cock-fucking him into oblivion. As the week had progressed, the normal three-day heat time lengthened most likely due to only having one heat previously in addition to whatever Moriarty had dosed him with, they had indeed christened every surface of the flat they could possibly have christened and even a few that some would have argued weren’t possible. Sherlock had let him mark the other side of his neck as well as the back of it and he was still utterly in awe over it. Over the week, he had also taken more time to assure his mate that he didn’t mind seven bondbites, that they would have been most assuredly prompted by the cause of Sherlock’s feralness and were just further proof of his protectiveness and care, and even encouraged Sherlock to renew all seven of the bites, which the alpha did with relish once he accepted John's assuredness of the matter. They were a proof of his love and even further proof of John’s omega side accepting his mate’s alpha side and he wanted people to see that, a bit of a personal security blanket for the days and weeks ahead. In cases where an omega was in heat and taken by a strange alpha, even the omegas in those situations will fight a second bondbite if they didn’t accept their alpha before the first one, so the first two would have been quite telling of the their relationship, much less seven.

When they had woken up this morning, his heat had cleared and they (meaning: John) had had copious amounts of laundry to do. After John had texted Lestrade to inform him that they’d be arriving later that afternoon, Sherlock had started the shower and produced a bottle of lube, opening him slowly under the warm spray and fucking him just as slowly against the cool tiles, something the intenseness of their (first) heat hadn’t allowed but perhaps future ones might. Some alphas didn’t fuck their omegas unless they were in heat so despite his soreness, he had been more than happy to oblige his mate’s loving affections. Once they’d dressed, Sherlock hadn’t been satisfied with a cab until he declared the fourth one to be a beta, and then as soon as they’d stepped out in front of NSY, he’d pressed a possessive hand to John’s lower back as he guided them towards the building.

He’d never felt this anxious approaching a police station before but he couldn’t help his emotions; he could only keep it off his face. He couldn’t keep it away from their bond though and Sherlock shot him a look before leaning down to press his lips to the shell of his ears in a gentle way that slid a shiver down his back.

“Trust me, John. I will always take care of you.” He nodded, keeping his eyes straight ahead.

“I know...mate.” Sherlock’s usually confident, steady pace faltered and John let the corner of his lips twitch in satisfaction. Since they’d been bonded, any time he called his mate by that term, a pleased-yet-startled look would come across the alpha’s face and a sort of confused happiness would slide across the bond. He knew he shouldn’t love it because he didn’t want Sherlock to be surprised that he loved him back but he couldn't help it. It would be a long time, he thought, before that surprise wouldn’t appear and he deeply looked forward to it. But he still wasn’t looking forward to the reactions of the Yarders to finding out he was an omega. He’d seen the prejudice towards omegas and he had no doubts that there were people that would treat him different despite knowing him for years. So far, the only ones that knew he was an omega outside of him and Sherlock were Mycroft and Anthea, possibly Mrs Hudson (he didn’t know what excuse Mycroft or Anthea had given their landlady), and he remembered Lestrade being one of the Yarders who’d arrived at the warehouse but he didn’t remember seeing any other Yarders he knew there. That didn't mean that they hadn't recognized him or Sherlock. “I trust you, implicitly, but I can’t help being nervous.”

Sherlock nodded and stepped forward to hold open the door for him. If it wasn’t something the alpha had already been doing for years, he might have protested because he was now even more self-conscious of being treated like an omega. He hated it. As soon as they stepped in, everyone looked up to watch Sherlock swan inward, hand still pressed firmly to John’s lower back, and then they looked down only for their heads to snap back up, eyes wide and fixed on the newly-revealed omega and the previously-dead detective. Silence bloomed in their path that made the back of his neck prickle. He walked faster to the lift and Sherlock silently indulged him.

When it arrived and they stepped in, he realized he was lacking in a bit more openness, that there was a confession he, and Sherlock, had yet to make, though he wouldn't force the alpha's confession.

"Sherlock?" The alpha 'hmm'ed lightly in response, eyes distant as they waited for the lift doors to close. His phone, surprisingly, had yet to appear in his hand, for which John was so very grateful.

"I love you." Sherlock blinked and then suddenly, all he felt from the man along their bond was shock as a pale face turned towards him.

"Speechless, huh? I bet if I told Anderson that I'd discovered your Mute button, what would you bet he'd give me his life savings to find out," John teased with a gentle smile.

"Shut up!" Sherlock snapped, a light blush staining his cheeks.

"All right," he replied softly, placatingly. Instead, he conjured up a summation of those feelings and eased them along the bond to his mate. As the lift doors closed and their reflections appeared in the polished metal, John had a sudden and violent desire to make sure no one in the world had seen exactly how dark Sherlock Holmes could blush.

**.oOo.**

He'd had nearly a week to get used to the new knowledge that John was an omega, that Sherlock was alive, and that they'd likely spent their time since the warehouse mating, but when the sorely missed pair walked in Lestrade's door and he got his first whiff of John's natural scent and Sherlock’s familiar scent and their now-combined scents, he couldn't help the sharp inhale or the tears prickling his eyes. He was around his desk and wrapping Sherlock in his arms before he even knew his feet were moving.

"Don't say a fucking word, Sherlock Holmes," he growled against the shoulder of the familiar dark coat. For once, the obstinate man complied staying silent and, to his surprise, returned the gesture. After a few moments, they both stepped back, Greg grinning and Sherlock's eyes twinkling even as his lips remained straight. "I'm glad to see you're not dead after all."

The alpha merely nodded and Greg's lips twitched in amusement as he stepped back and turned towards just enough to not be offensive to either of his friends. Knowing exactly how possessive newly mated alphas could be, and remembering the last time he tried handing something to John, he kept one eye on Sherlock as he raised his hand and John raised his and they met in the middle for a handshake. John's grip was a little harder than normal, and his eyes annoyed though he was trying to keep a smile on his face.

"I'm not made of glass just because I'm suddenly an omega to you now," he commented lightly but Greg could hear the warning in his tone.

"Never said you were. But it's not just you anymore," he replied lightly with a significant jerk of his head back to Sherlock who was staring at their still-joined hands with the same intensity he reserved for crime scenes. John's mouth formed a silent 'o' and a sheepish look came across his face as he let go. His mate instantly grabbed the same palm that another had touched and began rubbing his scent back into the tan flesh. John's cheeks reddened and Greg had to turn around, walking slowly back to his desk to try and hide his wide smile. When he'd finally composed himself, he turned around and sat down and found that the two visitor's chairs, normally several feet apart, were now side by side and containing one detective and his blogger. His lips twitched at the sight before he remembered why they were there in the first place and he could feel his face becoming as somber as his attitude. In response, both Sherlock and John straightened in their seats, shoulders squaring and chins lifting. He wondered if they knew they had been doing that in tandem long before they'd ever bonded.

"All congratulations aside, you two, we still need a full report of what occurred." He pulled a voice recorder out from one of his drawers and placed it on the desk in front of John who paled minutely but nodded. He turned to Sherlock first whispering something under his breath that, suspiciously enough, sounded like 'Everything?' to which the alpha nodded. John nodded back, took a deep breath...and promptly launched himself right into it.

Greg could feel his jaw dropping as he listened to the omega's unfolding tale of waking up kidnapped on his birthday ( _"Happy Belated Birthday." "Ta."_ ), the discussion that followed ( _"Did you figure out what the smell was?" "I'm pretty sure it was Moran."_ ), the viewing of a video of a night at Baker Street (John refused to say what happened in the video and even Sherlock looked curious until two spots of colour appeared on the omega's cheeks and his alpha smirked in understanding), the torture that followed (even though he knew how strong his friend was, physically and mentally, the thought of anyone doing that to an omega left his lunch churning uncomfortably), the rape after that (he had no clue how he kept his lunch down at the graphic detailing of pain), Sherlock's arrival ( _"Drama queen."_ ), his fake betrayal ( _"You did_ WHAT _?!"_ ), his execution of Moriarty and Moran (Sherlock's face was a strange mix of anger, as if he wished they were still alive so he could harm them further, and of smugness, from having dealt with the threat so thoroughly), their confessions ( _"I didn't even know until Moriarty told me that anyone knew I was an omega, and despite popular belief, we were not_  shagging _before Sherlock..."_ ), and then NSY's arrival ( _"And the rest you know enough of."_ ).

When John finally fell silent, his shoulders drooping minutely as he leaned back in his chair cautiously as if were going to tip back and drop him from it, Greg was practically shell-shocked in his seat and Sherlock had to be the one to turn off the recorder. He wanted to say something, anything, really, to let his friend know that nothing he’d said would change how Greg thought of him or looked at him, and that he was always there for him if he was needed at all, just like before. What came out was a woosh of air that did nothing at all except make John tense again. He looked at Sherlock, tried to see if the alpha might have anything to help with, but the man was rigid in his seat, staring at Greg as if he expected him to begin belittling John any second. It seemed that, for the moment, the best thing to do would be to get the work out of the way and go from there. John always appreciated not beating around the bush.

“Alright, first,” he started, sitting up in his seat and bracing his elbows on his desk, “there will be no charges brought against you, Sherlock. I don’t even think we’ll need Mycroft to step in on this one. We’ve been reviewing all the paperwork you had delivered here--” John shot Sherlock a puzzled look to which the alpha shook his head minutely ( _”Later, John.”_ ), “--and everything so far is matching up but a few of the countries you visited aren’t as fast as other with corroboration. All of your initial claims into Moriarty are being re-reviewed and the two of you may have to appear in court but I, and probably your brother, will do everything we can to stop that from happening.” The look on John’s face was pure gratefulness as he relaxed fully into his seat.

“Thanks, Greg. I really appreciate that.” He nodded absently, catching sight of Dimmock through the windows of his office walls who stopped and then did a double-take at his visitors. The smile on his face was genuine as he strode forward and in through the door before Greg could even warn him away.

The next few moments he could have sworn were happening in slow motion, or he might have psychic powers, because everything that was about to happen was making a warning sliver of dread coil in his stomach. Dimmock’s hand raised, about to drop down on John’s shoulder in greeting as he said “Hey, Johnny! Long time no see!” As the words were leaving his mouth, his hand dropped onto John’s shoulder and the omega stiffened tighter than a board, eyes growing wide, as the nervousness in his scent turned to fear so fast that it made Greg’s head spin. There was an instantaneous reaction, not from the soldier, as he’d expected, but from his mate, who yanked John from his seat and behind him and began snarling, pheromones exploding from him so quickly that it made Greg stumble into his desk and even Dimmock, who, being a beta, wasn’t as susceptible to the pheromones of alphas and omegas, fell back against the wall of his office with his own eyes wide in fear. Suddenly, the other inspector’s eyes began shooting between Sherlock and John and he took a tentative sniff, eyes widening further, if possible.

“I’m so sorry! I didn’t realize! I just--I’m--” he was stuttering, not that Greg could blame him. Sherlock, for all that he’s an alpha, rarely uses his second-gender to his advantage, instead using his height, his eyes, his posture, and even his clothing to create an aura of command and expected obedience around him. Sherlock the _alpha_ was terrifying, lips peeled back to expose teeth he had no doubt the man would use to protect his rape-traumatized omega, the pheromones he was exuding giving off nothing but aggression towards the one he had perceived as harming or intending to harm his mate. John was breathing hard where he stood behind his alpha, body stiff even as his fingers curled and uncurled constantly at his sides, eyes wide and, for a moment, far away.

“Sherlock,” John said suddenly, voice barely audible over the sound of Sherlock’s warning growls. “Sherlock,” he repeated, one hand curling around his mate’s bicep. “It’s okay. It’s not his fault; it was just a trigger word. It’s fine. It’s all fine.” Sherlock broke off his snarls with a worrying quickness and whipped around, wrapping John in his arms and burying his nose along his neck which, Greg realized for the first time, was covered in more bondbites than he’d ever seen. Considering how feral Sherlock had been when he’d arrived at the warehouse, not even able to recognize anyone but his mate, and if he’d had to watch his mate have _that_ done to him, then it was no wonder he’d marked John up that many times and was acting this possessive now. He looked over to find Dimmock plastering himself to the corner, trying not to breath or direct any of the angered alpha’s attention back at him at all. Slowly, Greg walked around his desk and gripped Dimmock’s elbow tight.

“Let’s give them a little bit of space and perhaps don’t approach John from behind for a bit, yeah?” he whispered, pulling him from the room. There were a lot of tense looking Yarders half-standing from their seats and staring blatantly in the direction of his office, and Sally herself was standing just outside, the look on her face the same she always used to wear when dealing with Sherlock.

“Sir? I saw Holmes and Watson go into your office and I thought I smelled--” she started but he held up a hand to stop her from continuing.

“You did and it’s nothing that can be dealt with right now unless you want to mess with an extremely possessive alpha and their newly bonded omega,” he told her, her face going confused at his words. He wondered how many people knew John was an omega or how many had even caught his scent. Then he wondered how many people had caught the omega scent and hadn’t realized it belonged to the doctor well known as an alpha and the thought made him chuckle before he remembered why the omega was ‘unmasked’ in the first place. “I’ve got both their reports on tape and I’m assured that Sherlock’s done up reports of what he’s accomplished while he’s away and that they will be delivered here, and they will corroborate his innocence and his original claims regarding the omega known as both ‘Richard Brook’ and ‘Jim Moriarty’.” He looked back into his office and saw Sherlock still wrapped around and hunched over his mate, John barely visible but for the two arm-shaped lumps creating bumps under the back of the alpha’s coat, indicating that the omega had wrapped his arms under his mate’s coat and around the alpha’s torso. Not sure how long his office was going to be occupied for, but really hoping they weren’t about to fuck on his desk, he decided that yeah, he really did need that tenth cup of coffee. And a cigarette. Maybe two. Definitely two.

**.oOo.**

As much as she loved her sister, Elizabeth Hudson was quite happy to be allowed to return to her flat after her impromptu week-and-a-half-long visit. She’d made Mycroft’s driver take her by the shop first to pick up some groceries, and as soon as she walked into her home, she’d set to preparing a feast. Her boys were back in 221B where they belonged, and from the smells wafting down from the upstairs rooms, it was quite obvious that they’d stopped dancing around each other. When the roast was finally in the stove, she headed up the stairs to do a little housekeeping, just this once, expecting a veritable mess of a flat. Since it had been just John, she had never had to clean up but she liked to bring him tea every once in a while and sit and chat. When she walked in, it was still fairly clean, but there was furniture tipped over or on its side, no clothes anywhere, but food packaging strewn about the kitchen. She hummed to herself as she went about the flat, tidying the main rooms.

As she was binning the last pieces of rubbish, she heard the front door open and then slam close, and then familiar and very much missed footsteps bounding up the steps.

“Sherlock!” she cried, holding out her arms with as big a smile on her face as ever and the alpha approached, the familiar coat-and-scarf getup causing tears to form in her eyes, and allowed her to hug him and place a kiss on his cheek, placing one on hers in return.

“Mrs Hudson,” he greeted back, one of his rare true smiles coming across his face. “Back with Mr Chatterjee again, I see.” She shook her head even as she smiled.

“You get settled in and I’ll bring you two up a cuppa,” she said, urging him to the sofa. John was standing just behind him and she breathed in subtly, smelling him as an omega for the first time. A mated omega. She sniffed and tried not to cry when she spotted the bondbites along his neck. “John! Look at you, all mated!” she cried. Remembering well her own alpha’s reactions to her friends and family after she’d been newly mated, she raised her arms and waited for him to come to her. He smiled warmly at her and wrapped her up in a firm hug.

“It’s good to be home, Mrs Hudson,” he said against her hair before standing back. “A cuppa would be lovely.”

“Just this once dear, I’m not your housekeeper,” she reminded with a smile, amused at their old joke as tiptoed out the door, closing it quietly behind her. As soon as she was back in her flat, she checked on the roast before setting the kettle to boil and she called a rarely-used number.

“Mycroft Holmes, I am making dinner and you will be here.”

**.oOo.**

When Mrs Hudson invited one to something, one went, even if one occupied a minor position in the British government. Also, one never missed an opportunity to tease one’s younger brother about sentiment. So of course, Mycroft was at 221B precisely 16 minutes after he received the phone call. As always, he did not knock when he entered but his footsteps and the _tap_ of his umbrella were quite obvious. When he entered, he was sure to not allow his surprise to show in his expression or in the pattern of his footfalls at finding Sherlock sitting proper on the couch and John curled up against his side, legs drawn up onto the couch as they watched the Bond film playing on the television.

“Of course we’re on the sofa, Mycroft,” Sherlock said suddenly, surprising John into attempting to sit up, a progress halted by a hand wrapped firmly around the back of his neck, the pressure on his new bondbite causing him to moan weekly and collapse back into his mate’s side. “We’re newly bonded. I’ll not be letting him from my sight for some time. Even if it means suffering through one of these ridiculous films.”

“Bond is not ridiculous,” John grumbled, voice muffled from where his lips were pressed to Sherlock’s ribs.

He had not know about John’s true second-gender until the night when Sherlock had met Moriarty at the swimming pool and he’d reviewed the footage from the sitting room cameras. Smelling it, and smelling their mating, though, was something he had not really been quite prepared for. Still, he was pleased that Sherlock had finally bonded. Already having heard the report of what Sherlock had done to Moriarty and Moran, he knew how Sherlock would react to a threat to his omega, even if the threat was from another omega, a mated omega, but he did not know how his younger brother would react to a perceived threat from his own flesh and blood. And so, instead of taking his normal seat in John’s chair, he settled into Sherlock’s, ignoring the triumphantly smug expression on his younger brother’s face.

“Obviously,” he sniffed as he crossed one leg over the other. He did have to say that, for the first time in decades, Sherlock looked truly happy. Even though his face was blank, his eyes were warm when he looked down at his mate, his thumb making continual circles around the mark on the back of the doctor’s neck, keeping him complacent at his side.

“Not fair,” John grumbled, fingers curling and uncurling repeatedly in the fabric along his mate’s ribs. The smell of his arousal was subtle and by no means unexpected. It was well known that an omega’s bondbite was a sensitive, erotic zone. Sherlock, he knew, was doing it quite on purpose, waiting for the scent to get to much for him to handle. He frowned disapprovingly.

“Sherlock...” The man sat forward to pick up his tea, the cup doing nothing to hide his satisfied smirk.

“Congratulations on your mating, Sherlock, John,” he said, looking away. “I apologize for having to send Anthea in my stead to pick you up.”

“Yes, I suppose it would be risky to have your own heat triggered, to have two bondpairs in such a small space,” Sherlock mused aloud, back to looking down at his mate. Mycroft fidgeted in his seat, repressing the desire to smooth a palm over his new bondbite. “And I suppose I could pass on my own congratulations as well,” he sighed, as if the words were of tremendous effort. John made a questioning sound. “Oh, Mycroft finally allowed Anthea to mount him.”

“Sherlock, don’t be so vulgar!” he snapped, cheeks darkening. If there was anyone in the world who could cause him to lose his composure, it would be his younger brother. He cleared his throat and tapped the tip of his brolly on the hardwood twice in agitation. “And I see you allowed John to bite you,” he finally returned.

“Yes I did,” the alpha murmured, voice proud rather than shamed, as would be most alpha’s response to letting an omega mark them. “Three times.” Though, in all likelihood, it had been Sherlock’s idea in the first place.

“Yoohoo! Boys! Come on down!” came Mrs Hudson’s call before he could say anything further. The good doctor scrambled to sit upright, the look on his face one of excitement.

“It’s been ages since Mrs Hudson cooked a meal,” he said as he hastened out the door and down the stairs. Sherlock’s expression morphed to one of anxiousness as soon as his omega was out of sight and he moved to go after John but Mycroft caught him by the elbow, flinching but not letting go at the warning snarl.

“I truly am happy for you, Sherlock.” The snarling ceased and his brother’s face went blank. “I know you and I do not have what others would consider a normal relationship, and I think we should both be bored if we did, but John Watson is everything that is perfect for you, and I am glad you and he have mated.” Sherlock was silent for a long moment.

“Sentiment, brother?” he sneered, yanking his arm free and rushing down the stairs. Despite his words and his speed, Mycroft was still able to catch sight of the faint red high in his brothers cheeks. Knowing his message had been properly received, he followed the others downstairs and assisted Mrs Hudson in setting the table, the both of them ignoring the way Sherlock was wrapping himself around his long-suffering and indulgent mate in the entryway.

**.oOo.**

Sally Donovan was far from pleased when her walkie went off, informing her that Sherlock Holmes and his blogger were on their way up to the penthouse flat that housed their latest crime scene. Now, Sally was the kind of person who followed the evidence, whether it led her to a conclusion that she liked or not. When, two years ago, all the evidence had pointed to the Freak being guilty of all those crimes, she had been quite happy to believe the evidence. When, four weeks ago, the alpha had appeared with his doctor at the Yard to give their reports and to have the reports from his travels delivered, she had not been happy to believe the evidence but she did so anyway because she had read the reports, all the reports, seen the evidence, and she was forced to accept that Sherlock Holmes had been correct from the beginning. That still didn’t mean that the overbearing, pushy detective had any right to their crime scenes.

“Sally,” the man said by way of greeting as he breezed by where she stood just outside the front door. His omega wasn’t quite as fast, walking up the stairs at a steady pace. As he got closer, he gave her a polite smile and moved to walk past her as well when she caught sight of the mess that was his neck. She already knew that the doctor, whom she had known as an alpha since she’d met him, was actually an omega, and she also already knew that he had mated with the Freak. What she didn’t know was how many times he’d been bondbitten. It took her back to when she’d attempted to pull in the doctor after Holmes’s apparent suicide, when she thought that he might’ve been an unwilling victim in the alpha’s schemes as much as the rest of them had been. She hadn’t been precisely wrong but she hadn’t been precisely right either. Now she was thinking that she had been more right, especially when she caught sight of the bondbite at the back of his neck. Before he could pass her fully, she caught his elbow and leaned in close.

“If you need help, we can protect you,” she whispered fiercely, quickly, aware of his alpha being just around the corner. “He can’t get to you everywhere, you know.” She only received a confused look in return so she pointedly flicked her eyes towards the bondbite on the back of his neck, the spot alphas only marked if they viewed their omegas like possessions. The same alphas who were typically abusive, and with what she knew of and had seen of the alpha, the commanding way he’d been dragging along his blogger for years before their mating, the injuries she’d seen on both of them, she had her doubts that their relationship was a safe one for the omega. The bondbite across the back of his neck, and the unnecessary four others on his scent glands, only seemed to further prove her point.

“I don’t need help with anything,” the man said slowly, brows furrowed as if in confusion. “Or anyone.” She found herself swaying forward as she breathed in the scent of mated omega. There was something about his scent...

“I would unhand my mate if you wish to keep your hand.” She yanked back at the growled words, eyes wide as her back slammed into the door frame.

“You’re pregnant!” she couldn’t help but exclaim. The doctor’s left hand rose to rest against his stomach, though it was still flat, as the Freak settled in at his right shoulder, his right hand raising to rest against his omega’s stomach as well, their fingers lacing.

“Yes, we are,” the alpha murmured, to her surprise; alphas were possessive over their mates and their brood but they didn’t usually accept that the pregnancy belonged to both parties like beta males did with their females.. “Now, if you’re done harassing my omega, I have a crime to solve for you.” And with that, the alpha was off again, though this time, it was with his omega firmly at his side. Sally could really only stare after the freakish alpha with wide-eyed and dropped-jaw shock.

**.oOo.**

Of _course_ Molly Hooper had heard that Sherlock Holmes was back. Who hadn’t? It was all the rage that the detective’s infamous suicide had been faked, which she already knew it was considering she’d helped him pull it off. She spent just over four weeks waiting for him to come through her morgue, wanting to investigate any of the corpses she’d had in, or maybe even just to see her. Finally, 33 days after his publicised return, he came swooping in, demanding to see the blood she’d drawn from the corpse that had arrived just an hour prior.

“It-it’s g-good to see you again, Sherlock,” she stuttered as she rolled out the deceased beta male in question. She hadn’t even begun the autopsy yet, and with other, higher priorities on her plate, she hadn’t planned on starting just yet. The man had a strange bump on his waxed pelvis, just a centimeter above his penis, and two nicks on either side of the penis that looked like they’d been made with a steak knife. As the alpha whipped out his pocket magnifier and bent over the knife marks, she dutifully went to the fridge and pulled out the requested bloodwork. She approached him slowly, working up the nerve to ask him to dinner when the door opened again to admit John Watson. Sherlock’s flatmate, blogger, ...and his pregnant omega mate. Her fingers trembled around the tiny glass bottle as the doctor gave her a smile in greeting and Sherlock turned towards her.

“Ah! Thank you, Molly,” the alpha said, plucking the vial from her fingers and moving to what may as well have been his microscope and preparing a slide with the sample.

“John, come look at this,” Sherlock called without looking away from the microscope. John whispered a greeting as he walked past, joining his mate at his side and looking down the magnifier when Sherlock moved aside to let him. Their talk of allergic reactions and anesthesia became a white buzz in her ears as her eyes landed and stuck on his seven bondbites. _Seven._ She barely noticed when Sherlock gave a cry of deduction ( _”Armin Meiwes!”_ ) and bolted from the room, his mate sprinting after him. Two years ago, she’d attended the detective’s funeral, known he was alive, and cried for the grieving friend left behind. Now, she went home and cried for the alpha she finally had no choice but to relinquish all hope that he might chose her.

The next time they came in, Molly had let it all go and was quite composed, if she said so herself, and she managed to pass on her own congratulations for the mating and the pregnancy with minimal blushing. John thanked her with a smile, the blush on his face darker than hers, which she couldn’t help but be amused about. Then, without warning, Sherlock pulled up short, his mate just barely avoiding running into his back. He turned and stalked towards her, pulling both of her hands into his, and his direct eye contact is enough to make her freeze in place.

“I realize I may be a bit remiss in taking so long, but yes, thank you, Molly,” he says, shocking her, and perhaps shocking John too, judging by the strangled sound she hears from behind the alpha’s back. “Without you, I never would have been able to fake my death. I wouldn’t have been able to take down Moriarty’s network, and i wouldn’t have been able to return to my mate.” She blinked, confused at the phrasing for they hadn’t been mated when he’d jumped off the roof of St Bart’s two years back. But before she could voice anything, his head was getting closer, reminding her of an embarrassing Christmas at Baker Street years past, and he pressed a kiss to her cheek with lips softer and warmer than he really should have had for a male, much less an alpha, much less someone she was frantically trying to tell herself she was well and truly over. And then he was whirling away, rushing back out her doors with his standard, “Come on, John!”

Trembling fingers danced across her cheek where his lips had been before she yanked them away and clenched her fingers into a fist.

“No you don’t, Molly Hooper!” she chastised herself. “That alpha is already taken. You are going to go on that blind date your mother set up tonight, you are going to have a lovely time, and perhaps you’ll find your own mate!”

And so, after a manner, that’s what she did; she went home, dolled up, and took a cab to the agreed upon establishment. When the maître d'hôtel led her to the table at which her blind date was already waiting--

“Miss Adler?”

“Irene, please.”

\--the intelligence in the eyes of the alpha immediately put her on edge for they rivaled the intelligence of bright grey eyes she knew well, and she already knew she wasn’t interesting enough to hold the interest of someone so brilliant. But despite her own self-warnings, listening to the woman speaking to her as an equal and laughing with her when a story called for it, by the end of the appetizer, was it really any wonder that she was smitten with the dark-haired alpha sitting across from her?

“So, Miss Hooper, tell me more about yourself.” Flushing at the steadiness of those dark eyes on hers, Molly began to speak. She’d never pictured herself with a female alpha before, but as her mind, and her voice, derailed at the thoughts of what this dominant woman could possibly due to her, her flush darkened until she was certain her whole face was alight. Across from her her, her date smirked triumphantly, knowingly, and the poor omega came to the realization that she may not be a virgin after tonight. As long as Miss Adler kept smiling at her like that, though, Molly didn’t think she much minded.

**.oOo.**

Weeks before John’s birthday, Sarah Sawyer began subtly fishing for hints of his favourite dishes and his favourite dessert, and then, their standard Friday dinners falling the day before his birthday, she made them all. She rather liked to think they had a decent time together. And then she didn’t hear from him from seven weeks.

Those first first few days of missed work without a call, all of her calls first rang through then were dropped into voicemail. After that, they just went straight to voicemail. Concern growing bit by bit, wondering if her fears of suicide had finally come to pass, she walked out of her door one day to find the front page of her newspaper declaring the dramatic return of one Consulting Detective, Sherlock Holmes. She’d gone back inside and fixed herself a coffee, unable to stop smiling with the thought that her friend and his flatmate were finally reunited. After that, all she had to do was wait for John to contact her. Finally, seven weeks after his disappearance and six weeks after Sherlock’s reappearance, he was shown into her office by a wide-eyed, slack-jawed Mary.

Not that Sarah could blame her. John was an _omega_. It certainly explained a lot of his traits, like when he’d come over upset and want nothing more than to just cuddle. And the connection he had with his alpha. And goodness, there was no way Sherlock wasn’t his alpha, not with three bondbites on each scent gland and the subtle scent of mixed alpha and omega, the extra edge on it telling her of his pregnancy.

“John, you had me worried there for a moment!” she exclaimed in greeting, standing up from her chair and leaning over her desk, positioning her arms just so that she could either be reaching out to hold his hands or give him a hug, letting the omega decide. She was pleased when he opted for more of a hug, pressing a kiss to her cheek.

“Sorry about that. I would have called or emailed but...I’m guessing you’ve seen the news? And, well,” he gestured at his neck, cheeks pink, “my bondbites aren’t exactly subtle.”

“No, they really aren’t,” she laughed. “It was that first week there that had me worried the most but after I saw the news, well, I knew I just had to give you two time.” John’s blush darkened and she smiled warmly at him.

“Yes, well, thank you. For that. My heat hit that first week--” his flush deepened considerably but he soldiered on, “--and then after that, well, we hardly left the flat. Sherlock was quite...possessive those first few weeks. Still is, actually. We didn’t even go to a crime scene until week before last.” Remembering well the detective’s obsession, she raised an eyebrow and he nodded. “Yeah.”

“Either way, I’m really happy for you. You’ve really had me worried these last two years, you know.” He gave a sheepish smile and ran a hand through his hair.

“Sherlock,” he merely said by way of an explanation with a shrug and she could only nod in understanding.

“So, you two, everything’s good then?” she asked cautiously, waving a vague hand at his stomach and his neck. In tandem, one hand went to his stomach and the other went to his neck, rubbing lightly as a smile bloomed across her face that took her breath away--she’d never seen him happier.

“Everything’s perfect.”

**.oOo.**

“Grab onto the headboard,” Sherlock whispered against his ear, the words and the burst of hot breath against the sensitive shell drawing a shiver down his spine. John could only nod his acquiescence as he gripped the wood tight, spreading his knees and dipping his spine. His entire body was warmed over, his hole dripping from a mix of silicone lubrication and what little his body would produce outside of a heat. His mate had spent the last half an hour licking then fingering him open and he was so hard, so ready, and he just wanted his alpha’s cock inside of him.

“Please, mate,” he begged, knowing how much Sherlock enjoyed him calling him that, how hard it made him. The thought of that delicious cock thickening just because of him made him moan.

“Shhh...” his alpha whispered, the tip of his cock just barely brushing against his hole. The bed dipped as Sherlock shuffled closer, draping his lanky self across his smaller mate’s back and his hands sliding around tan hips, palms coming to rest low on his omega’s _extremely_ gravid stomach. A strong chin came to rest gently on his shoulder as teeth nipped at one of his bondbites and he moaned again, grinding back against the thick cock pressed between his cheeks. “Shhh... Don’t move. You’re still on bedrest until the twins arrive next week.” The twins. He could hardly wait to meet them.

The pregnancy itself had been incredibly easy so far with the only difficulty being his mate. Whether it was Sherlock’s natural possessiveness or the feralness that was present at the time their bond was created, the detective was more possessive and more territorial than any mate he’d ever encountered before. And it only grew more intense the longer his pregancy his went on. In the beginning, it had been minor enough for him to still be able to go out in public, for him to join his consulting detective on cases. Before he’d started showing, if he’d been confronted by someone who had anything less-than-nice to say about either his true-second-gender, his pregnancy, or his mate, Sherlock had been able to restrain himself to glares and deductions more scathing than ever before to scare off the offending party. Once he did start showing though...Sherlock hadn’t been able to keep a hand from his stomach whenever they left Baker Street. And god forbid anyone do anything as much as bump his elbow--his alpha would snap at them, threaten to rip off their arm, before they’d even had the chance to apologize. Not to mention his trauma-induced jumpiness, always accompanied with a jolt of panic that he knew would hit his mate from across the bond, tended to trigger the Feralness from their initial mating. Finally, John just stopped leaving the house and Sherlock would come home happy, scenting him wherever he happened to be sitting or standing at the time before seeing to whatever needs he still had unfulfilled.

John had been so happy to find out that Sherlock was just as excited as him when they found out their first litter was going to be twins. The omega had started redecorating what had been his old room , ordering cribs and paint and just about everything he could think of to make a new home for their children, to keep the boredom of mate-imposed house arrest at bay. After a while though, even that wasn’t enough; he wasn’t a home-omega, which Sherlock knew, but his alpha was so possessive over him and their unborn children that he was getting just as claustrophobic inside his house as he was when going out with his mate. So he began to sneak out when the detective went out on cases, just going to the shop for whatever they might have been out of or taking short walks in Regents Park. One of Mycroft’s minions was always following him everywhere he went so he knew he was always safe. Not to mention, Sherlock always found him, no matter where he ended up. He was always a barely-contained livid at his pregnant mate wandering about without him, and every one of those excursions had ended back in Baker Street, his bondbites renewed with vigor during a just-as-vigorous bout of fucking which, even when his loss of control was at his greatest, Sherlock was always hyper-aware of his state and was always unbearably carefully with his pregnant omega.

When he hit eight months, the twins he had been told he was carrying had grown so heavy that he’d been forced to bedrest until they were delivered. He had been less than pleased. Sherlock had been overjoyed. But his alpha’s possessiveness had decreased now that his omega wasn’t being covered in scents not his own from his outdoor excursions, and had in fact stopped leaving home himself, answering cases only by text or email. The alpha had also stopped letting anyone in the flat too, not Greg or Mrs Hudson, not even Mycroft. Which was just as well because Sherlock began to insist John be naked at all times as long as he was in the flat. That, in combination with pregnancy-induced horniness, had both of them in bed almost as often as a heat would. Moments like now, with Sherlock forcing him to be as still as if he were bound, only able to pant heavily and readjust his grip as he waited to be pierced by that wonderful cock.

“ _Please..._ ” Smooth lips wrapped around a bondbite and hummed, the gentle vibrations just as erotic as a prostate massage and his breath hitched, cock jerking and hitting his stomach. His mate was plastered to his back, no room between them except where his alpha’s cock was rubbing teasingly against his hole. He readjusted his grip again, impatiently, fighting the urge to thrust backwards or to keep begging, both of which would only result in more teasing and a delay in satisfaction for both of them.

“I have you,” Sherlock whispered against his neck. “You’re doing so well, my beautiful omega. So well.” Before he could respond, his mate was pressing forward, the long, thick, hot line of that alpha cock filling him so wonderfully that it almost had him in tears. He’d been feeling so dreadfully empty for what felt like ages but what was realistically less than an hour. He whimpered as his mate came to rest fully against him, cock heavy in him and palms steady against him. “You feel so good, John. My John. So warm, so wet.” He pulled out slowly and pushed back in just as, but he didn’t stop just at one stroke. He started a pace and he kept with it, each thrust aimed expertly at his prostate until every nerve was alight with white fire. “I wish you could know how you make me feel, wrapping so tightly around me like you do.” Every word was murmured against his bondbites so that his entire body was on fire with pleasure.

“Probably... as good... as you feel... oh my god... in... oh god, Sherlock.... in me.” John had no idea how he even had control over his voice any more. Each brush of lips sent his cock throbbing, each thrust lighting him up to his fingers and toes. “My alpha, my strong alpha. You always know--hah!--exactly how to please me. Nnnnngh. Always. You always take care of me.” Pleasure was coiling low in his belly and a paralyzation was igniting at the base of his spine. It was a slow, lingering build, their favourite kind. It was almost painful for it to take this long but the orgasm at the end was always worth it. Sherlock was slowly speeding up, almost unnoticeable but for the increased flashes of pleasure when his prostate was hit faster and faster.

“Yes, always.” He couldn’t respond, the pleasure was too high. He was so close, his alpha’s cock enough to bring him to the edge without even a hand on his cock. Sherlock loved making him come that way and he loved coming that way just as much. It was building, building, building... his mate’s cock pistoning in and out of him firmly and slowly so slowly. John whimpered and dropped his chin to his chest, exposing the back of his neck, exposing the bondbite that gave them the most trouble from outsiders but was also the one that, to Sherlock’s surprise, he loved the most. But how could he not? Even at his most vulnerable, his instinctual side had offered that mark of absolute trust to the alpha mounting him. Those slim hips stuttered in their pace, the offer catching his mate by surprise, as it always did. But a moment later, the pace had resumed and intensified, a low growl of alpha satisfaction vibrating his back as teeth gently closed over the bondbite in preparation of renewing. One hand slipped from his stomach to wrap around his cock, long fingers warm and everything he needed. Sherlock stroked him once--down, up-- and his orgasm came barrelling down his spine and out his cock.

“Sherlock!” he cried, squeezing his eyes shut and tightening his grasp on the wood until he couldn’t feel his fingers any more.

“John!” was growled against his neck right before teeth pierced his skin, renewing the rolling waves of his orgasm as his passage clamped down on his alpha’s cock, hot semen splashing his insides when Sherlock’s hips came to a standstill behind him, his grip on his stomach never becoming harmful despite his loss of control. Lamenting the absence of a knot, he whined and rolled his hips slowly, milking even more seed from his alpha, even if it wouldn’t do anything. He just liked wringing as much pleasure from his mate as was possible.

After a minute had passed with no more pulses through either of their cocks, Sherlock pulled free despite John’s quite vocal and wordless objections and gently helped him to his side. The semen dripping from him was gathered in a large palm and rubbed into the skin over his stomach, marking him. Despite the extraneous bondbites and the obvious scent of his pregnancy detailing exactly who he belonged to, his alpha was still driven to mark him with his seed every time they’d had sex since he’d been pregnant. He didn’t mind though. The scent of semen on his skin was oddly comforting and he revelled in it.

“I love you, Sherlock,” he whispered, eyes closed as he let his head relax into the pillow, giving himself over to his mate’s affections. “Every day I’m thankful that--” his throat closed up; sentiment. He couldn’t help it though. What would life had been like if he’d let his secondgender be known from the beginning? What sights, what adventures would he have missed out on? He definitely would never have met Sherlock Holmes and that, really, was it, wasn’t it? One small moment in childhood, one huge impact that spanned his entire life, that led to him meeting a mate that was more perfect for him than any that could ever be. Despite his inability to voice his thoughts aloud, the hand rubbing the unconditional lotion into him paused and then his mate was once again plastered to his back, though this time he brought the duvet with him, covering them both and ensconcing them in a warm pocket of air that smelled of their recent mating. He curled in a ball around his stomach, pressing back against his mate, soaking in the warmth and comfort and protection his alpha’s firm limbs offered.

“As I love you, John. Every day, I am thankful for the events that led you to me, my perfect mate.” His breath caught in his throat at the voiced affections he couldn’t find, and to his horror, he felt tears slipping from the corners of his eyes. Silently, he cursed the excess of hormones at fault but to his credit, Sherlock said nothing, only wrapped tighter around him and nuzzled at his neck, rumbling comforting all the while. His pregnancy had left him a tired, horny mess, and now sexually sated, he could feel Fiddler’s Green pulling at the edges of his mind, blurring the lines between reality and dreamland. His army self would laugh at how much he slept nowadays, but truly happy in all aspects of his life, John didn’t bother to fight it, letting his mate’s gently massaging hands and the contented glow of their bond lull him to sleep.


	9. Epilogue

_So that’s my story. A lot of you have been begging for the details for the last three years, ever since Sherlock came back and my real secondgender was revealed, and I guess it was about to time to share them with the commonwealth. It is, by no means, a fairy tale, but I’d like to think that it may bring hope to omegas out there like me, ones who want to do things with their life before they settle down with a mate and pop out a few brats. You can do it. As cheesy as it sounds, you just have to want it, and you have to work for it, but if you do, it’ll be yours. It’ll all be yours._

_Oh yeah, the brats. A lot of you have seen me mention Edward or John or Anne these last few years, and you may have guessed that those are the kids’s names. You’d be right. The twins we all thought I was carrying? Triplets. Which explained the required bedrest that confused both me and my obstetrician. Edward was first, followed by John, and then Anne was apparently hiding behind her brothers, though she’s certainly not now, rambunctious little tart. You might also be wondering at their names. How could someone with a name like ‘Sherlock’ could allow his plain-named mate to name their children something equally plain? Funny enough, they were actually his idea and trust me, I’m as surprised as you are. Well, I was until I asked about it. It seems my alpha is a lot funnier than one might think, even after knowing him as long as I have--all three of our children are named after pirates. Edward is named after Blackbeard, John after Calico Jack, and Anne after Anne Bonny. The kids love it though, and more often than not, I’m bombarded by pirates when I walk through the door, usually led by the fearsome Captain Sherlock himself._

_Sherlock still takes cases. Of course he does; Sherlock wouldn’t be Sherlock without his cases. But while the kids are still young, he kept them mostly to email and text and only ended up leaving for anything above an eight. And the first month or so after they were born, he left the house as often as my last month or so of pregnancy. Which is to say: never. Now that they’re a bit older, our instincts are letting us leave a bit more frequently. Luckily for us, we don’t really have a shortage of people willing to look after them. Mrs Hudson, in particular, really seems to enjoy looking after them and she ends up volunteering for nanny duty more often than we ask her to. Greg and Molly are both fascinated by our mini-Sherlocks and we’re lucky that they like the kids enough to look after them when we get a private case our intrepid detective can’t not take. Hell, they’ve even swayed Mycroft. I think Sherlock might be trying to turn them against their uncle but they’re just as smitten with him as he is with him and so far it’s been quite the futile process on my mate’s part._

_Very rarely do people ask about what I went through, the kidnapping and the torture and the rape. Most of you are too polite to ask or don’t want to trigger anything but I’m sure you’ve been wondering anyway how I’ve been handling it all. I’ve been in an active war zone, I’ve been shot at and attempted to be blown up, but honestly, that violation will stick with me longer than my time as a soldier has or will. It never really goes away though, does it? If you’re in the right kind of mood, and someone says something that your rapist did in the same tone that they did, or if someone comes at you or touches you a certain way, it can be as damaging to your mind as when it first happened. Every once in a while, someone will call me ‘Johnny’ and I’ll remember that that’s what Moriarty would call me. Or I’ll be a little tired and someone will put a hand on my shoulder from behind and I’ll remember Moran approaching me the same way. It takes every part of me to not react as violently as my instincts tell me to, but even when I can restrain myself that way, I can’t help but feel panicked at the thought of that happening to my again. And unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, that panic always finds its way instantly across our bond and Sherlock’s restraints on his alpha side, more than impressive in any other situation, have been thin when it comes to me or the kids, and I end up having to calm him down as much as he has to calm me down. It’s a work in progress, and it will probably always be. But I know that he’s here for me, and I will always be here for him, and the kids will always be here for both of us, and we’ll always be there for the kids. And there will always be Greg and Molly, and Mrs Hudson, and Mycroft. We’re a bit of a ragtag bunch but there’s love and there’s loyalty and there’s understanding there and that’s what really counts._

_As they say, “The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray,” and no matter how carefully you plan some things, if the fates will it another way, then another way it’ll go. But it’ll go the way you need, whether you know it at the time or not._

_FIN_

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Please let me know what you thought, good or bad, in the Comments, and if bad, please be constructive so that I may better my writing! :3 Also, if you liked the story enough to want to promote/rec it on tumblr, instead of creating a new post, please reblog [my original post](http://themadkatter13fanfiction.tumblr.com/post/91723751048/best-laid-plans)! Thank you so much! You are, of course, also more than welcome to follow me on tumblr as well! :3 Tschüß~


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